Paws and Prejudice

by Alanna Martin

  For that, however, there was wine. When Lydia had taken her few staples (mostly cheese) down to the inn kitchen, she’d left a bottle of pinot grigio to chill on the tiny deck outside her door. Living in the apartment above the inn’s main building had the occasional drawback—namely, work never really went away—but at times it was awfully convenient as well.

  Yawning, she retrieved a wineglass and pondered what to watch on TV while she pretended the day hadn’t happened. It had to be mindless and low stress. That made a reality show a good bet.

  “So what should it be, Merlot?” Lydia called over her shoulder to her cat. “The Great British Baking Show or Queer Eye?”

  Merlot, who was getting up there in age and was no less crabby for it, jumped off his favorite windowsill and took up residence on the sofa. Lydia supposed that was the best she could hope for as an answer. She loved the tabby dearly, but he’d never been much of a conversationalist.

  “You’re right,” she said to herself. “The Baking Show’s stakes are too high for my blood pressure. Queer Eye it is.”

  Merlot blinked at her, which seemed like proof of agreement.

  Lord, she was becoming pathetic. Lydia suspected all people talked to their pets like this, but the fact that Merlot was the only constant male companion in her life was another story. To be fair, he set a high bar. He kept his messes confined to the litter box, didn’t hog the blankets, and if he had unwanted opinions about her appearance or homemaking skills, he kept them to himself. She couldn’t very well expect the average human male to compete, and she’d pretty much given up hope of finding one who could. Cody might make for an interesting diversion while he was around, but Lydia wasn’t overly optimistic about his chances.

  She grabbed the giant cardigan she kept by the door before opening it to get the wine. The sweater had belonged to her grandfather, and she’d inherited it along with the apartment. It was old, green, and becoming pocked with holes, but it reminded Lydia of its former owner, as well as being soft and warm. Evenings like this, cozy was far more important than stylish.

  A cold wind blew her hair back. It was a rare mostly clear evening. The ever-present dimness of winter had become full dark hours ago, but moonlight filled the sky, and the inn’s lights illuminated the paths below her. During the light hours, if she squinted, she might be able to make out the bay and the lines and lines of boats in the harbor. But at night, all she could see were dark trees swaying in the breeze.

  She’d left the wine bottle right by the door so she wouldn’t have to put on shoes to grab it, but as Lydia reached over, a scuttling sound drew her attention. Hand on the bottle’s neck, she searched for the source but saw nothing. It was probably a bird or a squirrel in the trees. Unless it got inside the inn somehow—and God forbid, she’d have enough to deal with today—Lydia paid it no more heed.

  Merlot, on the other hand, was extremely interested. Before Lydia could shut the door, he shot past her, a streak of orange fur disappearing down the wooden stairwell to the ground.

  Shit. Lydia almost screamed out the word in frustration. Merlot getting out was exactly what she needed to end a wonderful day.

  “Merlot!” She called after him once, then twice, but didn’t bother a third time. It wasn’t like he ever came when called. “Damn it.”

  She knew exactly where the furball had gone. Winding paths threaded through the trees around the inn, and on one of them between the inn and the Tavern was a metal bench. For some reason, Merlot liked to curl up on it after he got bored chasing whatever prey he found. Not that Lydia ever intentionally let him outside, mind. Merlot might fancy himself the big, bad predator, but he was a tiny snack for too many creatures in the area.

  Muttering under her breath, she stuck her bare feet in fleece boots, wrapped the cardigan tighter around herself, and trudged out. One downside to her male companion being a cat and not a human was that she’d feel guilty shutting the door on him and locking him out overnight.

  The evening air was biting, yet on the warmer side for late January. It got plenty cold in Helen, but the climate was a far cry from places like Fairbanks, where her maternal grandparents lived. She didn’t want to be outside long without a coat, but as long as she kept moving, frostbite wasn’t an immediate concern.

  “Merlot!” Although futile, Lydia couldn’t help but continue to call out his name as she traipsed down the steps. At least it was winter and she was unlikely to run into any guests going for a late evening stroll around the hotel grounds, seeing her dressed in her frumpy finest.

  Lydia picked up her pace, hoping to get to Merlot faster and to ward off the chill. Gravel and dried leaves crunched under her feet, but the path was dry. Remnants of the last snow lingered in the brush, too covered in dirt to glisten in the lamplight. She made the turn through the trees, expecting to find her beloved cat sitting on the bench, probably proud of himself for sneaking out, and found something startling instead—a man, bending over her cat, while two dogs chased their tails in circles around his legs.

  Not just dogs actually. Puppies. And not just any breed of puppies. Husky puppies.

  Lydia tensed. Huskies were a popular breed, but in Helen, huskies usually meant their owner was a Porter. The joke around town was that all combined, the Porters owned enough huskies to field multiple Iditarod sled teams. Lydia didn’t get the obsession, but then Lipins were cat people. Why, she couldn’t say anymore than she could understand the link between Porters and huskies. Supposedly, the feud had something to do with it. If the tales were to be believed, one of her ancestors had tried stealing some Porter’s sled dog. But that sounded like nonsense.

  Regardless, happy, cute puppies—and they were cute; she could acknowledge that despite her genes—were not the problem. The problem was that someone, possibly an enemy, was walking his dogs on her property and picking up her cat. And Merlot, the traitor, was allowing it. Lydia wasn’t sure which part of this entire adventure was more surprising.

  This section of path was dimly lit, and the man’s face was cast in shadow as he coaxed Merlot into his arms, but he was broad beneath his coat, and tall. Sturdy boots poked out from a pair of weathered jeans, and he wore a knit cap on his head that matched her cardigan, in terms of having seen better days. He also appeared to have a sling on his left arm, not that he was letting that get in the way of cat-napping her purring fluffypants.

  The puppies had noticed her and were straining toward her in excitement, but the guy ignored their barking while maintaining his hold on the leashes. Lydia couldn’t hear him, but she was pretty sure he was whispering to Merlot to get him to behave.

  Surprise had rendered Lydia temporarily speechless, but she should say something to the cat-whisperer before he absconded with her only male companion. “Hey! That’s my cat.”

  What it lacked in eloquence, it made up for in directness. Nothing more should be expected of a woman wrapped in an old cardigan and wearing pajama pants in subfreezing weather. Especially not when she’d had a long day.

  “Oh, good. Then let me hand him back to you. I was afraid he’d run off and freeze out here overnight.” The cat-napper-whisperer straightened with Merlot in his arms, and turned.

  For a second time, surprise left Lydia gaping. “Nate?”

  So it was a Porter on the hotel property. Lydia hadn’t seen Nate up close in over a decade, but some people couldn’t be forgotten. In fact, being unable to forget Nate had been a persistent problem in her life. She thought about him way too much and had inevitably compared every guy she dated to him. Or if not to him exactly, then to an idealized memory of him. It was easy to put someone you’d lost contact with on a pedestal, and even easier to use that memory as a way to dismiss others for not living up to an unobtainable standard.

  Seeing Nate, however, made it clear that not everything she’d chosen to focus on about him had been idealized. He’d aged, certainly, but in a way that only made him m
ore appealing. Though his heavy coat hid everything below the neck, his jaw line had somehow become stronger, and his eyes remained the same smoky blue—a trait shared by most Porters. Teenage Lydia had always thought he was cute, and adult Lydia saw no reason to revise that opinion, although she might choose a different descriptor. Ruggedly handsome would do.

  Acknowledging this caused a butterfly to flap its wings in her gut, and she didn’t like that at all.

  “Lydia.” Nate’s eyes opened wide, and he almost dropped her cat. Swearing, he readjusted his grip and winced as the movement probably hurt the arm in the sling.

  “Yeah, hi.” She pulled her cardigan more tightly around herself. Strangely, she was no longer feeling as cold, but she’d become super aware of her disheveled state. “I’ll take him.”

  “You’ll take? Oh.” Nate shook himself and placed Merlot in her outstretched arms.

  Puppies nipped at her ankles, but Nate’s face was so close that Lydia scarcely noticed. There was a day’s worth of stubble on his cheeks, and he smelled like . . . Well, she didn’t know what, but it was musky and warm, and that damned butterfly was spawning an army of followers. She should have chosen to focus on the puppies instead.

  Lydia snuggled Merlot close to her chest, both for warmth and for the way his body covered some of her fashion sins. “Thanks. He used to be such a skittish kitten, but he lost his fear of death a few years ago, and now he loves to escape.”

  “No problem.” Nate took a large step backward, nearly tripping over his dogs. “Feel free to make your own joke about firefighters rescuing cats.”

  She hadn’t forgotten Nate was a firefighter, but recalling it did nothing to quell the butterfly infestation. The demands of his job probably entailed that his coat was hiding a body every bit as appealing as his face.

  Lydia smiled, thankful her cheeks already felt flushed from the cold. “Does the job explain your arm?”

  Again, Nate seemed startled by her question. “No, actually. Nothing so interesting. That was a car accident.”

  “Sorry.”

  He shrugged with one arm. “I got off lightly, all things considered.”

  Merlot dug a claw into Lydia’s chest, and she tried to gently remove it without drawing attention to her boobs. “Are you staying with your parents?”

  The question she really wanted to ask was why he was walking his puppies around her hotel, but that seemed confrontational, and Lydia was not confrontational. Particularly when her body had abandoned her better sense. She had her cat. She was cold and underdressed. And yet instead of running back to her apartment, she was trying to prolong this conversation.

  If she and Nate were two other people reconnecting after years apart, she’d think nothing of exchanging phone numbers and planning to meet up while he was in town. But they were not two other people, and that was undoubtedly why they’d lost touch to begin with. So talking to Nate while she had the chance, even if it was in the cold and dark, was the only sensible solution. When they’d gotten together secretly in high school, they’d always had to be sneaky. Nothing had changed since then.

  Well, some things had changed. Nate was even more attractive now than he’d been then. That stubble on his jaw had her licking the back of her teeth since she couldn’t lick it.

  Lord, she was definitely pathetic. She was literally freezing her fingers off so she could soak up the sight of the man who’d once fueled her fantasies.

  The way Nate laughed at her question gave Lydia her answer before he responded. “No, much to my mother’s dismay. My family owns those rental cabins down the road. Most are empty for the winter, so I’m staying in one of them. There’s only so much family I can take, you know, and my mother stayed with me for the week right after the accident, so it’s been a lot already.” He shut his mouth abruptly, as if shocked by the torrent of words that had poured out.

  Lydia bit her lip to keep from laughing. From Nate, it had been quite a speech. “I know those cabins.”

  Ugh. Brilliant response. Of course she knew those cabins. That Nate was staying in one of them kind of explained why he might be walking his dogs around the hotel, but not entirely. She’d assume it was because of the path lights. It would be quite dark in the trees; not an ideal location to be walking a couple of energetic puppies.

  She started to ask about the dogs, but Merlot chose that moment to dig his other claw into her arm, and the poor cardigan did not provide much armor against that sort of assault. Her cat had to be cold. For that matter, so was she, and Lydia shivered.

  “I’ve kept you,” Nate said. “Sorry.”

  “No, it’s okay.”

  “You’re not even wearing a jacket. Here.” He pulled his hat off and fitted it over her head. Once more, his nearness set Lydia’s nerves on high alert. His hand was gentle, tugging the hat down over her hair and ears, and Lydia closed her eyes. If she hadn’t been holding Merlot, she told herself she’d have protested. But she was, and Lydia didn’t know if she was lying to herself. There was something so familiar about the way Nate wanted to take care of her, but she had to remember this was just Nate. He wanted to take care of everyone he met. It had nothing to do with any residual feelings or attraction he might have to her. And that was for the best.

  Still, the heat from Nate’s body seemed to wrap around her like a blanket, and the chill resettled under her clothes as he stepped away too quickly. “Thanks again.”

  Nate smiled. “No problem. Now get inside before you get any colder. Your cheeks are bright red.”

  Her nose probably was, too, but Nate was too kind to mention it.

  One of the puppies raised its fluffy head at that moment and barked into the trees, and Nate sighed. “I hope I tired these guys out enough that they might let me sleep. Good night, Lydia. It was nice to run into you.”

  “Yeah, you too.” She nuzzled her chin against Merlot’s fur as Nate turned to leave.

  A few minutes later, Lydia shut her apartment door with little memory of how she got back. An ungrateful Merlot swatted her with his tail before reclaiming his spot on the couch, but she stood by the door a moment longer, clutching the wine but no longer feeling the need to drink any. Her head felt light enough.

  “This is absurd.” Lydia shook herself, trying to toss off the adrenaline rush. It was only the cold having this effect on her. Once she warmed up, her nerves would settle. She’d realize running into Nate had not been such a significant event, but rather something inevitable given the size of the town, and not at all meaningful. She’d been flustered from surprise and nothing more.

  Which didn’t explain why she sniffed his hat when she removed it, hoping to catch a trace of him in its wool fibers.

  Fine. She apparently found him attractive. Whatever. He had been attractive then, and he was attractive now. Plenty of men were attractive. That was also not significant.

  Lightheaded or not, she should probably have that glass of wine anyway.

  * * *

  * * *

  WELL, SHIT. THAT had not gone the way Nate had imagined it would.

  Back at the cabin, he let the little monsters off their leashes, and took some comfort that the long, late walk seemed to have done the trick where they were concerned. They dashed about the downstairs before collapsing on the rug by the wood stove. It figured that they’d probably sleep tonight while he’d lie awake thinking about Lydia.

  He’d been back in town for two days and was still unsure of how to approach her. Running into her while walking his dogs, however, had not been part of any of the plans he’d concocted and dismissed. The idea to walk the puppies around the hotel paths had undoubtedly been because Lydia was on his mind, but they were also well lit and so they’d seemed ideal. Since most people didn’t go for random nighttime walks in an Alaskan winter, and Lydia wouldn’t have dogs to make the behavior less random but more of a necessity, Nate had assumed he wouldn’t d
isturb anyone.

  Technically the hotel paths were private property, and Lydia had every right to kick him off them, but Nate hadn’t worried about that. And if another staff person saw him, it was unlikely he’d be recognized at this point. He could just play lost and confused, like any number of tourists. He was almost surprised that Lydia had recognized him.

  She, on the other hand, hadn’t changed a bit. Her face had matured, as presumably had the rest of her. Though he couldn’t tell, he’d no doubt be thinking about it later. Either way, she remained the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. Her dark hair and eyes had set off the flush of cold on her pale cheeks, turning her into a creature out of a fairy tale as she stood among the dim trees—equal parts sweet princess and seductive witch. Just the memory of her grateful smile as she took her cat from him had his mouth going dry.

  He’d rambled. Actually rambled in front of her. Christ.

  It was fair to say his plan to get closure by showing himself that he was over Lydia Lipin had been a failure in every conceivable way.

  Also, he needed to stop reading those damn paranormal romance novels Kelsey wrote because those stories were obviously affecting his brain.

  Nate hung up the leashes on hooks by the door, and placed his coat next to them. Reaching for his hat, he recalled that he’d handed it over to Lydia along with the wayward cat. He supposed that gave him an excuse to track her down again, so that was something. He wasn’t devious enough to have given it to her on purpose, but he wasn’t above using any opportunities that came his way. At the time, though, she’d just looked so cold. He’d have given her his coat, too, if getting it on and off with his sling hadn’t been such a pain.

  “You’re such a dumbass,” he muttered to himself, and the confession was punctuated by puppy snores.