Everything To Prove

by Nadia Nichols

  He must be hearing things. He pushed to his feet. “Did you say Libby was cleaning rooms?”

  Karen nodded. “I told her to take a break but she refused. She wanted to get done early so she could go back out and help you look for the plane. I hope you like tuna salad sandwiches, they’re the flavor of the day.”

  “You mean, she’s working for you?”

  Another nod. “Just temporarily, for her room and board. She wanted to stay nearby while you were here.”

  Carson was certain his mind had been muddled from the nap he’d taken. He couldn’t be hearing this correctly. “She told me she was some kind of doctor,” he said.

  “Crazy, I know, but she knew I desperately needed the help. She’s way overqualified, no doubt about that, but I’m sure glad she’s here. Summers may be short in Alaska, but when you have no help, they’re endless. Mr. Dodge, are you married?”

  The question took him completely by surprise. “Not anymore,” he said.

  “Have supper with us tonight. We eat at 6:00 p.m. Libby told me you wouldn’t come but I’m guessing you might like my cooking and her company enough to show up. All you have to do is put up with a lot of long-winded fishing stories.”

  Carson shook his head. “Thanks, but I’m pretty busy.” As soon as the words were out he realized how ridiculous they sounded. She had, after all, just caught him napping.

  “I’ll set a place for you, just in case you change your mind. Good luck with your search.”

  She set the basket on the table and left as swiftly as she had come. Carson watched her, baffled by the information she’d just given him. All this time he’d thought Libby was lounging about the way vacationing or off-duty doctors must do, reading thick novels and sipping white wine, or maybe martinis, after the sun had crossed the yardarm. And all this time she’d been working. Cleaning rooms, no less.

  He waited until Karen Whitten was quite a way from camp before hefting the basket and lifting the dish towel that covered the contents. He shook his head again, marveling at the bounty within, then glanced up and narrowed his eyes in thought. Would she have invited him to supper if he’d told her he was married?

  Women were strange creatures, no doubt about it. But they could cook, and at this particular moment, when his belly felt as if it was permanently plastered to his backbone, that’s all he cared about.

  “FOR YOUR INFORMATION, CARSON Dodge isn’t married,” Karen told Libby as they prepared a quick lunch for the guests. “But I didn’t get around to asking him about kids, or if he had a girlfriend he was really serious about.”

  Libby froze in the act of spreading tuna over twenty slices of homemade bread. “You actually asked him if he was married?”

  “I thought you’d want to know and figured you were too shy to ask.” Karen gave her a bland, innocent look. “I also asked him to join us for supper.”

  “You didn’t!”

  Karen was putting lettuce on top of the tuna, then the second slice of bread, and cutting the sandwiches in half. She worked swiftly enough that Libby had to jump back into action with the sandwich knife and bowl of tuna salad. “Not only did I ask him, but I think he’ll come.”

  “When did you have this little conversation?”

  “I walked down to his camp a few minutes ago to leave him some lunch. He happened to be there.”

  “He was in camp? What was he doing?”

  “I think he was having a nap, actually, which wasn’t a bad idea. He looks like he could use a lot more sleep than he’s been getting. As well as food. I’m sorry I interrupted him.”

  Libby glanced up, knife poised over the last slice of bread. “Did he look…sick?”

  “He looked tired and beat-up. I think he’s trying to do too much too soon.”

  Libby dropped her eyes back to the bread and spread it with the last of the tuna. She nodded. “You’re right, and it’s my fault. I’m pushing him because I’m so desperate to find that plane and he can only stay one week.”

  “You told me it took two people to search,” Karen said. “Does he have to be one of them?”

  “Reading that screen is a highly trained skill. What we’re looking for is a plane that might be in a whole bunch of pieces and covered with three decades of sediment. There’s a good chance that I could look right at those pieces of wreckage and not recognize them for what they were,” Libby explained. “So yes, I think he needs to be the one interpreting the images.” She paused. “Do you think he looks in worse shape now than when he came here?”

  “Personally, I don’t think four hours of sleep is enough for someone recovering from injuries that severe, but you’re the doctor. Am I wrong?”

  Libby felt a great weariness mire her thoughts. “No, you’re not wrong.” She set the knife down on the counter. “I’ll tell him I’m not feeling well and that we can’t go out tonight.”

  Karen’s expression brightened. “Good. I know you’re anxious to find the plane, but if he comes for supper I would recommend walking him back to his camp afterward, maybe building a cozy little campfire and sitting around it in a friendly, social way. Who knows? Maybe you could even try talking to each other. I’ve heard that works pretty good for getting to know someone. And to make that plan even more attractive, I’ll give you the rest of the day off so you can help him search right up until supper time. That way you won’t be losing any ground even if you do knock off early. How does that sound?”

  “More than equitable.”

  “If you go over there right now, he’ll probably still be working on the lunch I brought.”

  Libby frowned. “Are you playing matchmaker?”

  “You bet I am. It isn’t often that I get the chance, way out here. How’m I doing?”

  “I’ll be sure to let you know,” Libby said with a grudging smile.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  IF CARSON WAS GLAD to see her he certainly didn’t show it, but neither did he growl at her, which she took as a good sign. He was stuffing some things into a day pack when she came into the clearing and he paused to give her a questioning look.

  “I have the rest of the day off,” Libby announced. “I’ll drive the boat again so we can cover more ground.”

  He nodded as he slung the pack over one shoulder. “Works for me, if it works for you. Are you really a doctor?”

  “I really am. I graduated from Tufts Medical School, interned at Mass General and specialized in forensic pathology.”

  “Then why the hell are you cleaning rooms at that lodge?”

  “Because I’m broke. I gave up a very lucrative residency to come out here and find this plane.”

  “Why now? Why’d you wait all these years?”

  “Believe it or not, it took all those years for me to be in a position where I could actually afford to do something about it. Maybe I should have waited until my savings account was a little healthier, but when I read that article in Forbes magazine I guess I went a little ballistic. So here I am, cleaning rooms and helping you look for a plane at the bottom of the lake.”

  His eyes narrowed. “What happens to you if we don’t find it?”

  “You said you would, and I trust you. We’d better get out there.”

  He studied her a few moments longer. “Isn’t forensic pathology where you cut up dead bodies looking for clues to their death?”

  “Something like that,” Libby said.

  “Huh. Must be frustrating to be a doctor and not be able to boss your patients around, but at least they can’t talk back.”

  Libby gave him a steely look. “Don’t think for a minute the dead can’t talk. They tell all kinds of stories in their own way. They talk the same way my father’s bones will talk when you find his plane, and the whole world is going to sit up and listen to what he has to say. Now let’s get going, shall we?”

  This time she took off her sneakers and rolled up her jeans before stepping into the lake. As she waded out to the rubber boat, Libby reflected that Karen’s efforts at matchmaking wer
e definitely wasted on Carson Colman Dodge. He was so prickly a porcupine would run from him. Not that she cared. Theirs was strictly a business relationship. It was his professional skills she was banking on, not his sadly lacking social skills. Once he found the wreckage, they would go their separate ways.

  LUANNE HEARD FREY MUTTERING aloud long before she came out onto the porch. He was leaning forward in his chair, binoculars raised, watching the point of land where Dodge was camped. “She’s with him!” she heard him mutter. “She’s with him. That’s good!”

  And then the screen door banged behind her and he jerked around, lowering the binoculars. “Don’t sneak up on me like that!” he barked.

  “You told me to bring your medications at noon, Mr. Frey. It’s noon,” she said, setting the pills and the glass of water on the side table. “The cook would like to know if you prefer an artichoke salad with your broiled fish, or a garden salad.”

  His scowl deepened. “I don’t give a damn what kind of salad she fixes. It’s all inedible. You tell her I don’t give a damn.”

  “Yes, sir.” Luanne turned to go.

  “Wait!” he said. “Tell her I want the artichoke salad.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “She can’t possibly foul that up. It comes out of a jar.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Tell her to serve it right in the jar. Just open the top and put the jar on a plate. Tell her to do that.”

  Luanne nodded.

  “And tell her not to burn the fish this time. Broiling doesn’t mean burning. Tell her!”

  She nodded again. Frey was becoming uglier by the day. She wondered if maybe Graham wasn’t right. Maybe she should leave this place and go to work for Karen Whitten. It would be such a relief to escape Frey’s bitterness and hostility, but she’d vowed to stick out the summer. College was expensive and the money Frey paid was good. And so she went to tell the cook how to prepare Frey’s salad and broiled fish, and tried to keep her thoughts from straying too often across the lake, to the friendly place where Graham worked.

  THE LOON HAD FOLLOWED THEM all afternoon, swimming just abaft their starboard beam, diving and surfacing, watching them closely for a while and then diving again. Carson was aware of the loon even as he concentrated on the monitor, but he was far more aware of the young woman sitting in the stern of his boat. He squinted against the bright sun, tugged his hat brim lower and eased his bad leg trying to find a comfortable position. He gave Libby a hand signal and she obediently altered course. He gave another short signal and she obligingly adjusted. She read him well. Too well. That was beginning to irritate him. It also irritated him that she drove the boat with such skill, took direction without questioning, was quiet when most women would have been yapping away endlessly about trivial things. It irritated him even more that she was a doctor, and it baffled the hell out of him that as a doctor she would choose to specialize in cutting up dead people. That was just plain weird. Women doctors should gravitate toward warm and fuzzy motherly stuff like pediatrics.

  Although he kept his eyes on the sonar screen, he was aware of her presence and it was driving him crazy. She’d worn jeans again, and the cuffs were rolled up high enough so he could catch a glimpse of those slender and incredibly feminine ankles and equally graceful feet. Ankles and feet weren’t supposed to be that beautiful. When she’d taken off her fleece pullover to pare down to a T-shirt, he became aware of her arms. Same story. Slender yet obviously packing some strength, probably from moving those talking corpses around on the slab. She had a pair of hands that would have made Michelangelo weep, and the curve of her neck as she turned her head to watch the loon would inspire a poet’s imagination to lofty heights. The thick dark eyelashes that fringed those vivid blue eyes, that oh, so kissable-looking mouth, the way the T-shirt clung to the soft swell of her breasts…he was aware of all of these things without even looking at her, and all of them were driving him mad.

  He had to force himself to concentrate on the screen, check the GPS, motion to her for a course change, all without letting her see that she was causing a rapid meltdown of his defense system. If she even guessed what was happening, if she even suspected the effect she was having on him, he was doomed. She’d destroy him effortlessly.

  He had to concentrate. Had to find that damned plane, get his money and go his own way before she got into his blood any more than she already had. Once she became heiress to the immense Libby fortune she’d no doubt beat a hasty path out of the Alaskan bush, take up residence in some California beachfront mansion and read thick romance novels and drink martinis while the surf crashed at her feet. She’d have servants, lots of them, and bell pulls in every room that she’d summon them with. And a pair of those ridiculous long haired Afghan hounds that she’d walk on her private beach at sunrise, wearing one of those sexy thong bikinis and pair of dark sunglasses, her long black hair blowing in the Santa Ana winds.

  Well, maybe she wouldn’t change that much, but when he found that plane she’d become a very rich woman with no use at all for a washed-up salvage diver. Not that she had all that much use for him now, but he liked to think he was earning his five-thousand-dollar retainer. Assuming she ever paid it.

  LIBBY WAS ALREADY STIFF and sore and they’d hardly been out for an hour. Karen was right. Even though this job just entailed sitting in a boat, it was borderline torturous for her. She could only imagine what Carson must feel like, cramped over the sonar screen in a craft that was too small by half for his six-foot, broad-shouldered quarterback build. She studied the way he watched the screen, studied his profile, the strong, masculine planes of his face, bronzed after four days on the lake, the last pale vestiges of his long hospital convalescence erased by the sun reflecting off the water and burning him in spite of the long-billed cap he wore. He hadn’t shaved that morning, and the dark stubble made his features appear even more rugged and helped to hide some of his injuries.

  The scars on his face would fade, but they’d always be visible. Every time he looked in the mirror he’d be reminded of his close brush with death. She doubted his hand or his leg would ever function normally again, yet he pushed himself and persevered and refused to accept his limitations, and she admired that about him. So many people would have collapsed into a wheelchair and sunk into the depths of a black depression. So many would have given up, but Carson was too full of arrogance and anger, and anger was a great motivator. She had a feeling that Carson would go down fighting, no matter how desperate the circumstances or how high the odds against him were. He was the type that would fight to the end.

  “Graham Johnson’s father was shot by Daniel Frey when Graham was just a boy,” she said, speaking the first words in well over an hour. Carson’s head jerked toward her and his eyes locked with hers. She felt the electric jolt clear to the soles of her feet. “Apparently Graham sneaked into the lodge after his father told him never to go there. Frey caught him inside and beat him bloody. Solly Johnson took offense at that and went to see Frey. He stood on the dock and called Frey out. Frey stayed inside the lodge and shot him in the arm. The incident was never reported.”

  “Huh.” Carson looked back at the sonar screen, checked the handheld GPS and gave Libby a signal. She adjusted course. The silence stretched out. Minutes passed. Another half hour of searching and not finding. And then, without glancing back, he said, “So, we know Frey is capable of violence. Did you ever talk to Solly Johnson about the plane crash?”

  “Yesterday. He never answered me. I told him if he remembered anything at all to tell Graham. According to Graham, Solly’s pretty reclusive and doesn’t talk much.”

  Carson rounded his shoulders then rotated them around, easing stiff muscles. He shifted his bad leg, something he did frequently, and then reached his good hand into the day pack in the bow of the boat. “I brought some food,” he said. “Tuna sandwiches and a thermos of tea. Your boss delivered it to the camp before you came.”

  Libby accepted a sandwich. “Thanks. Karen told m
e you were coming to supper tonight.”

  He flashed her another quick glance beneath the brim of his cap. “I told her I couldn’t.”

  “She must have misunderstood.” Libby unwrapped the sandwich with one hand, balancing it on her knee as she held the tiller. “She’ll be disappointed if you don’t come, and you’ll miss out on some great food.”

  Carson made no reply, just kept his eyes on the sonar screen while he ate a sandwich. He finished a second one before she was halfway through her first, then handed the flask of tea to Libby, who opened it and poured him a cup, handing it back to him because the lake was too rough to set it on the seat.

  “You can’t live on packages of dried noodles and canned beans,” she finally said.

  “I’ve done all right up to now.”

  “Well, I wish you’d come. I’m getting pretty sick of listening to all those fishing stories.”

  No comment.

  Lunch over, they shared an awkward silence that seemed to build on itself as they got back to the tedious business of working the search pattern and looking for an elusive de Havilland Beaver.

  THREE ENDLESS HOURS LATER, Carson dropped Libby off at the lodge’s dock. She had a hard time climbing out of the boat and he heard her stifle a moan. Carson shifted into the stern to take her place at the tiller and prepared to depart. “Tell Karen thanks for the lunch,” he said. “I’ll drop her basket off when I go back out on the lake.”

  “Come to supper,” Libby urged him, rubbing her leg muscles. “It’ll be ready soon. Come up now and I’ll fix you a drink. You can sit in the living room in one of the leather recliners and veg out. Life doesn’t get any better than that.”