by Nicole Snow
City stars are scattered muddy things, if you can see them at all. A dot here, a pinprick there.
It’s only out here, in places where the night gets truly dark, that the stars forge a path. The Milky Way’s belt rolls across the sky in a brilliant streak that slowly fades at the edges into something softer, darker, welcoming and deep.
I’m still looking at those stars when I say, “I talked to Ms. Wilma today. About a lot of things. But mostly about you.”
“Yeah?” he rumbles, a touch of warm curiosity in his voice. “Telling her we need more towels because I use them all?”
“Nothing quite like that.” I can’t help but giggle anyway. When did we get so domestic? “She made me think about a lot of things, Alaska. She made me realize a lot of things, too. Like the fact that I’ve been hiding behind my fear. I’ve been scared to tell you the truth from the start, but not just about Paisley. About me. About what I want. About how afraid I am of...” I swallow, breathe deep, make myself push on. “Of there being something real between us. An us at all, I mean, instead of us just playing pretend for cover because I don’t want to get chopped up into little pieces.”
Alaska has this stillness to him I swear I can feel.
Like the night itself gets quieter, waiting for him to speak, the raw anticipation of sparks and static on the air.
“Do you want an us, Fliss?”
Heavy pause.
Then my nerves soften and my throat opens so I can speak.
“Yeah. I think I do.” My voice almost breaks, but I hold it steady. “I’ve been telling myself this whole time not to read too much into things. You’re just being an amazing guy and you’d do this for any lady in distress, I’m sure, but...but it’s more than that, isn’t it?”
Such a small question, a front for the ginormous fuzzy feelings hidden behind tiny words.
The kind of question that makes you realize some part of your heart never grew up. It still wants to bundle these wild, conflicting emotions into a crumpled note and scribbled words, I like you, do you like me?
Love notes were easier then, though.
Nothing at stake but a semester of embarrassment. Or maybe even a few months of thinking you’d be together forever until classes changed and you never saw each other anymore, and then you were just over as a fact of life.
My love notes now are spoken word—I like you, do you like me—hanging on the air in this gaping, heavy silence.
The answer could determine where the rest of our lives go.
And while I’m ready to hear that answer, I can’t help how my pulse seizes up.
I forget to breathe as Alaska sets his beer down slowly on the little table with a small clink, watching me with that contemplative hawk gaze and an indecipherable smile.
“You know,” he drawls, “I must not be nearly as obvious as I think I am.”
I blink.
“Uh?” That’s all I manage.
Getting words out feels like chewing taffy.
Alaska laughs—but it’s warm, good-natured, the kind of laugh that wraps you up like a cozy blanket instead of something hurtful and cruel.
“I’m trying to say you’ve got my head all screwed up, Fliss. I’ve been trying to be your friend for the sake of being your friend. Because I think you’re a good person. Because I think you deserve a friend. But dammit, you’re right,” he says, raking his eyes over me. “Taking a stake in your life? That’s because I care about you a hell of a lot more than any old friend. You, specifically, and I thought I was being pretty damned obvious about it. Polar bears aren’t known for their subtlety. Ask Holt.”
“O-ohhh.” There it is—that moment when you get what you hope for, but you’re so unprepared for it you just lock up in a stammering mess.
I have to look away.
You know you’re in trouble when you’ve slept with a man and he can still make you feel like a bashful prom date with just a few words.
It’s the only way I can pull myself together long enough to find words instead of strangled sounds. My chest feels like it’s about to pop right open with my heart on a bouncing, glittering spring.
“Darlin’, you okay?” he asks softly, tilting his head.
“No. Yes. Maybe. I mean, so once I get this mess sorted out with Paisley...”
“You want to see if we’ve got a chance?” he finishes gently. “Yeah, I do.”
“Something like that.” I wrap my arms around myself with a weak smile. “If you aren’t sick of what a disaster I am by then, anyway.”
“Fliss. Felicity. Look at me.”
The way he growls my name, holding it in his mouth like a buttery thing, draws my eyes to him. I turn my head to watch him.
But I’m surprised to find he’s not looking at me.
He’s tilted his head back, staring up at the sky, his dark eyes drinking in the stars and reflecting them back until I see entire galaxies above and below.
“I’ve been scared to death of women since Katelyn,” he confesses, so quiet and yet with a raw, heartfelt honesty scorching every word. “There was a day Eli could’ve died because of her. She let him get lost in a park that doubles as a nature preserve, thousands of acres of untamed wilderness where anything could happen to a little boy. She was drunk. So focused on her new boyfriend and her booze that she forgot to give a shit about Eli.”
My breath stalls.
The hurt I feel is this strange echo of the pain in his voice, but it’s my own agony too.
A phantom grief for the alternate future where Eli and possibly even Alaska never would’ve existed, never would’ve walked into my life, never would’ve been there to save me when I needed it the most.
When he’s still protecting me in my darkest hour.
Oh my God.
“Terrible. I’m so sorry,” I whisper, and he smiles grimly, giving back his eyes.
“Not your fault. Point is, I vowed that day I’d fight for him with all my soul. I’ve never put myself ahead of my boy. Never got so focused on my own needs that he turned into an afterthought. Hell, if I’m being honest...” He heaves out a deep sigh that makes his thick chest rise and fall heavily. “I was scared for me, too. I’d fallen out of love with Katelyn by the divorce. She showed me who she really was with her drinking and her recklessness. Doesn’t mean she didn’t sledgehammer my heart into glass beads. You do that once, you get real uneasy about letting anyone do it again.”
Doesn’t he know he’s taking a chisel to mine with every word?
I just want to throw myself at him, squeeze his neck, and show him it’s okay.
Because if we have a chance—if he’s willing to take that chance with me—I’ll die before I savage him again.
My heart’s a heavy rock in my stomach, my breath hardening to a lump in my throat, but I try to smile anyway.
“I’d promise I’ll never hurt you,” I say. “But no one can promise that. You know all my secrets now. I don’t have more nasty surprises waiting. No bodies in my basement or anything. If you’re waiting for the other shoe to drop...” I shift my weight in the chair so I can stretch my legs out, wiggling my feet a little in my boots. “They’re both right here. Not falling anywhere else.”
As I’d hoped, that gets a laugh, some of the pensive weight lifting off him and leaving his tense shoulders looser, lighter.
He gives me a wry look.
“No worries, woman. You and Katelyn are nothing alike. She chose her demons. You inherited yours, and you’ve been doing everything you can to chase ’em off.” His eyes soften. “Now we’re doing everything we can to finish it together. We’ll get it sorted. We’ll set you free.”
“I wish I had your confidence.” I drop my feet, heels thudding lightly against the planks of the deck, and wrap my arms snug around my shoulders. “Still. I feel like I’m finally moving forward. And part of moving forward means overcoming my fears and just...”
“And?”
“Trusting someone else,” I admit shyly. “Trusting you w
on’t disappear or drop me. Suddenly decide you hate me.” I swallow. “Not come back.”
“Like your old man,” he whispers.
“...just like Dad.”
Ms. Wilma had me pegged with precision after all.
Alaska doesn’t say anything, not with words.
He offers me his hand, stretching it across the space between us like one half of a thing that could be so perfect if I could just figure out how to slide into it without completely destroying it.
Tentatively, I slip my hand into his.
I can’t resist him or the intense way he stares.
This man sees me like he sees something no one ever has.
Not a rumor.
Not a mystery.
Not a nuisance.
Not a problem to be fixed.
Not a list of issues to be grudgingly accepted.
Just the woman I am—the person in the now—and not even some nebulous future me where I may or may not be a better version of myself.
And I know exactly what present me is.
Destroyed.
So many feelings lash through me my eyes sting.
No one’s ever given me eyes like Alaska, and it makes my heart flutter as his fingers curl around mine, folding them so warmly it’s like he’s enveloping my entire body and cocooning me in safety.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he says, rich and rolling and fervent. “You’re not the only one who needs to trust. I want to trust the way I feel around you. The way you feel so good with me, with Eli. I don’t give a damn about Paisley or whatever bullshit life throws at us. I want to weather those things with you, Fliss. Not wait around, and only have you when conditions are ideal.” His grip tightens on my hand, reassuring, steady. “That’s not how being with someone works. Only wanting them when things are perfect, but holding back when they’re not.”
He’s killing me piece by piece.
I’m not going to cry.
I’m not.
I’ve been fighting off tears for so long, but this is the first time I’ve felt so bright inside that it threatens to rupture my heart and overwhelm me.
Clutching his hand tight, struggling out a smile around trembling lips, I stare into his eyes.
“You’re too good to be true, you know that?” I take several deep breaths, forcing myself to calm down. “Ms. Wilma was right. I need to stop overthinking things and just leap.” My smile widens. “Turns out it’s not so bad when there’s someone standing by to catch you.”
“It helps if you stop thinking you’re cursed.” The subtle pressure of his grip is almost unnoticeable, but it’s enough to draw me closer.
No—he’s enough to draw me closer, his magnetism irresistible.
“This town’s seen a lot of trouble. Yet somehow, folks here always find their way. Makes me feel like I could find my happiness here,” he rumbles, words thick and low and so, so true.
I can feel it in the air, thrumming between us in the heavy, slow look he gives me from those deliciously deep eyes.
The unspoken words I hear at the end of that sentence, loud and clear because they’re there in his gaze.
With you.
The idea that I could make someone happy feels so alien, yet it’s all I want.
To be able to make Alaska and his son as carefree and content as they make me.
I’m officially out of words.
So I show him the only way I know how.
I lean in to kiss him—and as many times as he’s touched me, made me tremble and shudder, made me beg his name and wrap my legs around his hips and writhe, this feels gloriously different.
I’ve never felt anything like this kiss.
Because this kiss is the first kiss that promises there could be something real and everlasting between us.
Something more than carnal passion.
Something more than human kindness.
Something that makes my mouth soft and needy against his as we explore each other’s mouths with tenderness, tasting each other like it’s still the first time our flesh came together.
We’re made of sighs and sensation as lips meet lips and skin touches skin and our hands decide they’ll never, ever let go.
They stay that way, twined together as we pull apart, looking at each other with slow, shy smiles.
Then we settle in to watch the night roll by, finally together in ways I never knew we could be.
20
Gold Dust (Alaska)
Nothing will bring me down off this cloud Felicity’s got me riding.
But if anything could, it might be Gavin Coakley.
I can’t explain what feels off. He’s been a model employee ever since Holt brought him on crew. He works hard, keeps to himself, and even acts friendly enough with the rest of the crew.
No posturing or dick waving or impulsive brawls. No drunkenness or games. None of the pile of bullshit I expected.
He shows up, clocks in, does his job and does it well, then punches out and disappears.
No beers with the guys after hours, either, which is fine by me. No matter how smooth he’s acting, I’m not inviting him onto my social turf.
I should be relieved.
Maybe he’s finally over his damned grudge and looking to make good.
Then again, I’m old enough to know that when something’s too good to be true, it usually is.
Gavin, the model worker, eats at me like an acid drip.
I try not to be too obvious with watching him, disguising the direction of my eyes by lifting my head to wipe sweat from my brow.
Got plenty of good reason, right now.
It’s hot as hell and we’re out here in this open, exposed valley under the summer sun, laying foundation on the new museum. The nice thing about the heat is that the concrete will set fast and clean.
Bad thing about the heat—I’m about to sweat through my clothes till they melt right off.
Polar bears weren’t made for this weather.
I catch a glimpse of Gavin. He’s supposed to be operating the mixer, but he’s stopped, zoning out for a minute, looking off toward the rock face and the dark, formless opening that used to lead down to the old silver mine and the Galentron lab.
Just the sight of that blackness makes me remember the living blackhole who calls herself Fuchsia. From what Leo told me, she used to be a covert operative for Galentron’s less than public interests.
He told me that so I’d trust her with the intel retrieval we need.
Honestly, it just made me more wary, but if it helps Fliss, whatever.
Sounds like Fuchsia’s close to turning up the goods. Got the lowdown last night at our usual table at Brody’s.
She’s been busy closing in on the Lockwood crew, following every digital rabbit hole, and apparently she’s so close to breathing down the back of Paisley Lockwood’s neck it’s a wonder that evil doll of a woman doesn’t feel a chill in the air.
Even Leo tensed, talking about the carnivorous glee in Fuchsia’s voice when she relayed her efforts. He stressed how the lady’s technically retired, living a new quiet life at an undisclosed location, but people like her never retire their instincts.
Once a hunter, always a hunter.
And I’m wondering if Gavin’s really the upstanding do-right he’s been pretending to be—or if there’s something about that old mine shaft that brings up memories best left to die.
He shakes himself from his daze and turns his attention back to the cement mixer.
I whip my eyes away, back to hauling dry cement sacks, hopefully before he noticed I was watching him.
Fuck, I’m probably being too paranoid. Call it restlessness when all I can do for Fliss’ situation is wait.
Only, ever since Katelyn, I’ve learned to trust my senses like they’re divine.
Right now, they’re oracles speaking loud and clear.
Something’s not right.
I try to put it out of my mind, though, as I focus on pushing through today’s job.
/>
By the time the sun’s slipping down the horizon, we’ve made good progress. Tomorrow we can probably put more serious work into sinking some rebar. Everyone’s a sweaty, grimy mess, but we’re all satisfied with ourselves as we stow our equipment and lock things down for the night.
I’m just getting ready to go hose off so I don’t leave construction grime on the seat at the bar when my name echoes over the worksite.
Holt—and there’s something in his voice that has me on high alert in an instant, hackles rising sharply.
He comes bolting out of his trailer-slash-office, running so fast that he leaves the door swinging open.
I lift my head as he jogs toward me, his entire body tight, his face hard.
My oracle lunges up and punches me in the gut.
Something’s very wrong.
I’m racing to meet him, calling out before I even close the distance.
“Yo, boss? What happened?”
“Eli,” he gasps, stumbling to a halt in front of me. My heart rips, an arrow of solid dread piercing my chest. “Warren called, man. You weren’t answering your phone. Eli—Eli and Tara went for a walk, and they never came back. They’re missing, Alaska. They’re gone.”
Gone.
Just four tiny letters.
The worst fucking word I’ve ever heard in my life.
I’ve been cursing myself for hours, on the verge of smashing my fists bloody on whatever I can find, but that won’t bring back my son.
It’s a waste of time. I can’t even work out the rage, the fear, the desperation like my body craves.
I typically leave my phone in the portable lockers when we’re pouring cement so it doesn’t end up inside a permanent brick, but right now it feels like the biggest damned mistake I’ve ever made in my life.
That mistake cost me precious minutes, and they might be the difference between finding Eli—or finding him dead.
It’s pitch-black out now, but the night’s crawling with crisscrossing beams of flashlights moving through the woods around Heart’s Edge.
Me, the town’s handful of Podunk cops, and tons of well-meaning townies all join the search.