by Edie Claire
Juneau. She hoped that Thane’s stay in the city would be brief, because she was anxious to see him face to face. She wanted to get Linda’s disturbing confession off her chest. She wanted to sit down with both her sons and have a nice, long chat over a hearty, home-cooked meal. But most of all, she wanted Thane the hell out of Alaska.
***
Mei Lin felt a twinge of guilt as she sat before her computer and typed the name into the search bar. Stanley Smith, MD. It seemed dishonest to do stealth research on a friend, which is how she was beginning to see him. But Stanley was also still a patient, and if she wanted to help him, she would have to understand him better. His excitement over the bear was bound to fizzle out eventually, and if his underlying issues weren’t resolved by then, he could drop into another suicidal funk.
She could not allow that to happen.
Stanley had promised her that he would take his evening dose of antibiotic, and this time she had believed him. She had left him in the capable company of Dave Markov, who had shown up at the cabin in a tizzy explaining that on his last foray he had sighted what he believed to be the tracks of a bear sow and two cubs just a few hundred yards upstream. The men had quickly developed a rapport, and as Mei Lin walked away they had been sharing a pot of coffee on the porch, discussing potential bear movements like military commanders strategizing for battle.
She stared at the churning circle on her laptop screen. The wifi in Gustavus was excruciating. But she did credit it with helping break her habit of constantly checking her phone for messages and silly pictures. She still voice-called her friends, but since coming to Alaska she’d spent way more time seeking out the company of other live humans, which she found far more satisfying.
Finally, her laptop screen flashed, and Mei Lin sat up. Her search had produced a long list of hits. Not surprisingly, the name Stanley Smith was a common one, and it was shared by quite a few doctors. She steeled herself for a marathon of churning circles, then began clicking through the entries one by one, checking age and specialty for every possible match. But her effort proved fruitless. There simply was no trauma surgeon, or even general surgeon, who fit Stanley’s profile.
She sank back in her chair, frustrated. Given that Stanley had spent a good chunk of his life on foreign soil in underdeveloped areas, she wouldn’t expect him to leave much of a digital footprint. But she had expected to find something. An archived record of medical school graduation, for example. A donation to his alma mater. A line in a parent’s obituary. But… nothing?
She dropped the MD. She tried adding Alaska. Stanley had never said where he’d lived or worked before going overseas, but his musings about relatives in Yakutat and his familiarity with the rainforest made her suspect he had grown up in Southeast Alaska. Wherever he had lived over the past roughly seventy years, he must have left some trace! Unless…
She groaned out loud. Of course! Stanley Smith wasn’t even his real name! She pushed back her chair and stood up. She should have known. Had the man not bought a cabin in the middle of nowhere with the intention of hiding from the world?
Spirits flagging, she moved to gaze out the window over Elsie’s meadow. A misty rain clogged the air, and no creatures stirred, not even the restless swallows that nested in the eaves. The dutiful parent birds would catch no mosquitos today — not until the rain stopped. If the rain stopped. Either way, Mei Lin could draw comfort from the vista. She knew that most people would find such a gray, soggy scene to be depressing. But she found it hauntingly beautiful.
I don’t want to leave.
The voice that piped up from her subconscious was faint, but it demanded to be heard. Mei Lin’s eyes swelled with tears. She had known this cry was coming. She’d known it the second she’d spied all those job query responses in her inbox… and felt miserable.
She didn’t want to leave Gustavus. Not when she’d been so happy here. She was still happy here, despite the loneliness of the empty house. But she couldn’t stay. She had to have gainful employment. And no matter what anyone else thought, she couldn’t—
Her tears turned to sobs. She so hated to disappoint everyone! Her mind kept replaying the faces of her friends at the will reading… so excited, so earnest. They had all been so certain she would make a fine hospice practitioner! The confidence they had shown in her warmed her to her core, even as it made her feel wretched. And Elsie, in absentia, had made her feel worst of all. Dear Elsie, who knew all about Texas and still believed in her! Elsie had never directly asked Mei Lin to set up a hospice practice in Gustavus, but ambushing her at the will reading was entirely in character. Besides enlisting half the town to apply peer pressure, the wily old dear had managed to transform what would otherwise have been a friendly suggestion into a dying wish!
Mei Lin chuckled through her sobs. Elsie was a scream. If they’d known each other when Elsie was younger and healthier the two could have had some raucously good times. But Elsie was gone now, and the one thing she had asked of Mei Lin was the one thing she could never, ever do.
She cried harder. Stanley had said that one needn’t have a perfect life to be a good practitioner, and Mei Lin didn’t disagree. No one was perfect. But nobody, not even her family, knew the whole extent of her stupidity. The gullibility of Mei Lin Sullivan, BSN, MSN, was off the freakin’ charts. With men her own age, it was legend-grade. She’d known her ex-fiancé, Josh, for six solid years, yet she’d never really known him at all. She’d thought Anthony to be intelligent, Jeremy to be responsible, and Travis not to be a felon. Zero for four spelled failure by any standard; her only consolation was that with those relationships, the only person hurt had been herself.
Professional misjudgments, on the other hand, carried grave consequences. A poor judge of character made a poor judge, period, and there would be no more Mariels. Knowing what she knew about herself, Mei Lin felt morally and ethically obligated to stick to what she was good at: following orders and providing bedside care.
Her sobs subsided as her resolve hardened. Disappointing people she cared about was difficult, but she had to do what was best. She dried her cheeks with a shirt sleeve and cast her eyes out the window again. No matter how she was feeling, the expanse of nature before her — always alive, always changing — was energizing. A fog had formed over the river, and she could no longer see across to the far meadow, much less make out the mountain peaks and sliver of ocean in the distance. But she knew they were there. They always would be, whether she was here to see them or not.
She threw back her shoulders and returned to her laptop. She would pursue those job replies, and she would do it now. Gustavus was hardly the only place on earth with a good view! Perhaps she could live in a smaller town on the coast of Washington or Oregon. Wherever she wound up, she wouldn’t be alone. She would make new friends. Maybe she’d even meet a guy who was as sexy and kind and funny and honest as—
A jolt of pain shot through her middle, derailing her happy train of thought. “Stop that!” she chided. Thinking about what might have been with a man she barely knew and would never see again was not only pointless, it was pathetic. Anyway, she had most likely misjudged Thane just like all the others. He was probably really a heroin dealer who ran a child porn ring out of a massage parlor in Detroit—
The doorbell rang. Mei Lin leapt up immediately, her mood transformed. Someone had come to see her! She suspected a near neighbor, since she’d heard no car, but the identity of the caller hardly mattered. The weather was tailor-made for a cup of Elsie’s homemade spiced tea, and providence had spoken!
She hustled down the steps and threw open the door. Her breath caught in her throat and her heart stopped.
It was Thane Buchanan.
It couldn’t be. Thane Buchanan had left two days ago.
But it was him. It was definitely him. He was here. He was back again.
Well, hot damn.
She gave a cry of joy, burst out the door, and jumped. It was a practiced move — one she had excelled at since hig
h school. In one motion she flung her arms up and over his shoulders, body-slammed her weight against his chest, and wrapped her feet around his middle. He grunted with the surprise impact, then reflexively encircled her with his brawny arms. She’d been clinging to his neck a good three seconds, laughing all the while, before it occurred to her to wonder what the hell she was doing.
OMG! Internalized fantasies aside, the two were not technically friends. They’d never even hugged before.
Had she lost her mind?
Probably. Never mind that she’d jumped on guy friends literally hundreds of times in her life… the fact remained that all of them were actually friends. To jump on an adult man person she’d met exactly once was so far beyond the pale it was inexcusable. She should be mortified. She should be scarlet with embarrassment.
Meh. She regretted nothing.
“Thane Buchanan!” she announced, releasing him with a little push to the shoulders and bouncing back down to earth with aplomb. “You are the last person I expected to see. But I’m so glad — obviously! What’s brought you back so soon? Or did you never leave in the first place?”
The handsome face with the striking blue eyes stared back at her, clearly speechless. How she did love those eyes! No one else on the planet had eyes like Thane’s, except maybe…Yes! Stanley had eyes like that. Was that why he had seemed familiar to her, that first day she’d found him on the cabin floor?
Thane’s jaw began to loosen. After another moment, he began to speak. “I, uh… I did leave. I went back to Vancouver… moved out of my apartment. I’m staying at my brother’s place now.”
“Where is that?” Mei Lin asked, her heart hammering. She couldn’t keep the heady joy out of her voice if she tried, so she didn’t. “You mean he lives up here?”
Thane shook his head, making drops of rainwater fly from his soaking locks and beard. “Tofino. On Vancouver Island.” Damn, he was good-looking. Even better than she remembered. His hair seemed a shade darker, though—
“Oh!” she exclaimed, embarrassed for real this time. She hadn’t even noticed they were standing in the rain. She couldn’t imagine where he’d walked from, but he’d clearly been out — with the hood of his raincoat down — for quite some time. She stepped back and opened the door. “Come in, come in! I’m so sorry.”
He laughed. It was a hearty, booming laugh, and its deep bass reverberated pleasantly through her body.
“Here, take off your coat, I’ll hang it up,” she offered, helping him disrobe. She really should not be this excited. She should not be staring — was she gaping? — at his powerful shoulders and solid chest and thinking about how gorgeous he must be underneath all those soft layers of cotton and fleece…
***
Thane was having more than a little trouble believing his good fortune. He had hoped that the pretty little nurse would still be in Gustavus; he had doubly hoped that if he had the gall to hitchhike to her house from the airport and wander up to her door unannounced she might actually be home. In a perfect world, she might even be glad to see him and would invite him in for a chat and a nice, hot cup of coffee.
But this? Maybe the plane had crashed or he’d been struck by a truck. The fantasy would end any moment now, and he would wake up. He’d find himself lying in mud somewhere with his head aching…
“Would you like a cup of coffee?” the imaginary woman asked. “Or maybe some of Elsie’s homemade spiced tea?”
“Coffee,” he murmured, staring at the vision. His mind had recreated Mei Lin as even sexier than he remembered. She wore a soft white sweater than clung to her curves and leggings that did the same lovely thing. Her dark eyes sparkled and her smile was radiant. In his fantasy, her greeting was legitimate. She knew who he was and had acted on impulse out of sheer joy. She also wasn’t embarrassed or apologetic about it, which proved for sure that he was dreaming. Women always hid their true feelings — that’s how they kept the upper hand.
“Come on upstairs,” the vision suggested after his boots were off and his backpack and rain gear were spread out to dry. She was still smiling. “Have a seat in the living room and I’ll get the coffee.”
Thane followed her enticing form up the staircase and into the comfy living room he had previously only glimpsed through her porch windows. This would be the part where she started peeling her sweater off—
“How do you take your coffee?” she asked, moving into the kitchen. “I’m afraid I only have instant. Or the kind with the little bags. I can brew a pot, but it will take a while.”
Thane blinked. Surely his brain could do better than this. He hated instant coffee. And why the hell were her clothes still on?
“Thane?” she asked, her voice full of laughter. “Did you hear me?”
He woke up then. Fully and completely. What was happening was real. She was real. Her sweater would not be coming off. But… Hellfire, had she actually jumped on him? “Instant is fine,” he answered, trying hard to keep his voice normal. “Whatever you have. I don’t care.”
She gave a brisk nod, causing her silky black hair to swing about her shoulders. It had smelled like flowers when she’d hugged him.
“I can’t believe you’re back,” she said gaily as she rooted around the open kitchen. “I didn’t expect to ever see you again!”
Thane leaned over the counter between them and watched her hips sway as she moved. “Yeah, I know. I wrecked that whole shtick, didn’t I? I’d say I’m sorry, but I’m not.”
Her smile said that she wasn’t either. “What happened?” she asked. “I mean, how did it go? With your non-fiancé?”
Vanessa was the absolute last thing he wanted to talk about. “Ghastly.”
“I’m sorry,” Mei Lin said softly, appearing to mean it. “But I still don’t understand. Why are you here? I mean, I know I give awesome advice and everything, but surely you didn’t fly all this way just to cry on my shoulder!”
The image that formed in Thane’s head was inappropriately pleasant, and Mei Lin averted her eyes. Had she made a Freudian slip? He hoped so. “Oh, I have another reason,” he said smoothly. “But it’s a secret.”
She stopped what she was doing and frowned at him. “Not if you want this coffee, it isn’t!” she teased. “Spill it, Buchanan. I’ve had enough secrets lately.”
“Okay, okay.” He really must be dreaming. Women thrived on secrets. “I’ll tell you if you promise not to laugh.”
Mei Lin turned back to her work with a giggle, and his blood heated at the sound. Hers was not a girlish giggle, but a low-pitched, jolly rumbling that seemed to bubble up from her soul. “Sorry! No can do. You’d best just throw it out there.”
Thane grinned. She was definitely going to laugh at him. But what the hell? “I got a call from Dave Markov last night. He was all excited because there’s been a sighting up here of a very rare mammal, and he knew I’d want to hear about it.”
Mei Lin turned around again.
“He knows I have a… well, I guess you’d call it a ‘Moby Dick’ thing for this particular critter,” Thane continued. “Minus the murderous intent, of course! He didn’t expect me to fly up, though. This little field trip was a spur of the moment decision; I pretty much jumped on the first plane out. And yes, I realize it was a crazy, impulsive thing to do. But after the… uh, confrontation, you could say I had an irresistible urge to get out of Vancouver.”
Mei Lin’s exquisitely shaped, dainty black eyebrows lifted. “You’re talking about the glacier bear?”
Thane’s mouth dropped open. Just seeing her plump ruby lips form the words “glacier bear” justified the cost of his plane ticket. “How… how did you know?” he sputtered. Then a horrible thought struck. “The word isn’t out all over town, is it?”
She shook her head. “No, no. Don’t worry. I only know because I’m the one who saw it.”
He leaned forward, afraid to breathe. “You saw a glacier bear?”
Mei Lin exploded into laughter. Her reaction might have surprised
him if he wasn’t totally absorbed with watching her perfectly curved little body double up with mirth. “Yes, it was me,” she confirmed. “I told Dave and Mary because they happened to be the first people I ran into afterwards. I had no idea it was such a big deal! He told me not to tell anyone else. But clearly, he did!”
For a long moment, Thane could do nothing but stare. Either he had just fallen in love, or he was projecting his obsession with glacier bears onto the first female he’d ever met who had glimpsed one. He didn’t know which, but the effect was the same either way. Mei Lin Sullivan was now officially the most entrancing female alive.
He attempted to collect himself. But as her words finished percolating through his brain, he whirled around and headed for the nearest window instead. “You saw the bear here?” he demanded, his eyes scouring the misty meadow. “Where?”
Mei Lin nearly fell apart again. “No, no! It was way out in the woods… on somebody else’s property.”
He turned around reluctantly. “Tell me,” he begged. “Tell me the whole story. Everything.”
“Fine,” she agreed, still laughing. Merciful angel that she was, she didn’t make him wait for the water to heat before she began telling her story. And what a story it was! There she had been, all alone deep in the woods when a mother bear and two cubs appeared before her. She hadn’t run, of course, because she was as smart as she was beautiful. She had done everything right, and the bears had peacefully wandered away. A black cub and a blue one. Just like his favorite story his dad used to tell!
At some point she handed him a steaming mug of coffee. It smelled wretched, but even if it hadn’t, his interest was gone.
“I have to see that cub,” he whispered hoarsely. “Please, Mei Lin. Take me there?”
Chapter 18
Thane grumbled under his breath as he secured the last of the rope on deck while Dave drove the boat away from the dock.
“Will you stop looking so glum?” the ranger chastised with a grin. “We’ll get you out there soon enough.”