Lost Harbor’s tiny five-hole golf course was located on a hill outside of town. It was notorious for swallowing up golf balls in its stands of spruce and thickets of alders. One summer, a pair of sandhill cranes had decided to nest on the trimmed course, and everyone simply learned to play around them.
“You look like shit today,” Maya told him as she took a few warmup swings.
That was the kind of friend she was. Honest. Also, that was how she operated as a detective. She wasn’t known for her tact.
“Spoken like a true best friend.”
She squinted. “Best? … Really?”
He pretended to wipe away a tear. “Don’t worry, I just demoted you to frenemy.”
“Can’t keep track anymore. I need an app for that.”
He wiped a bit of grass off the head of his club. “You’re really still a tween girl at heart, aren’t you?”
“See, now you’re being sexist. I just demoted you to ‘fuck that guy.’”
Settling in at the first tee, she braced her feet apart. Under her creamy knit hat, her rich brown skin caught the sheen of the rising sun. They always preferred to play before work, before all the demands of crime and emergencies chased them down. Nothing kicked the day off right quite like busting each other’s ball for an hour or so.
Unless one of them needed some real help, in which case they were always the first to show up for each other.
“Pretty sure that’s me on most apps. ‘Nate Prudhoe. Fuck that guy.’” He watched Maya tee off with a beautiful stroke that sent the bright orange ball soaring high and far. Come fall, they always switched to orange balls because you never knew when a freak snowstorm would blanket the course in white.
“Enh, you give yourself too much credit.” Maya flashed him a grin as she stepped aside to give him his turn. “Strangely, lots of girls still like you. I keep trying to talk them out of it, but apparently a dimple goes a long way.”
“Sorry to break it to you, but it’s not my dimple they’re interested in. Boom.”
As she jeered, he set himself into his stance. Tuning everything out except the crisp air against his skin, the breath of spruce, the crunch of frost-limned grass, he focused on the little orange ball perched on the tee.
This was what “live in the moment” was all about. It was a beautiful thing to play golf on a frosty morning in Alaska with his best friend. He drew the golf club back, ready to swing hard.
Bethany hadn’t noticed his dimple.
The thought flashed through his mind as he took his swing. And damn if it didn’t totally distract him. His ball went wide, landing a good twenty yards farther from the flag than Maya’s had.
He swore as he came out of his swing. “What the fu…”
“You all right today, Nate? Got a fever? Pulled muscle in your…uh, dimple?” Maya crinkled her forehead at him. In her police capacity, she was generally stern and by-the-book. Off the job, she let her face take on all kinds of hilarious expressions.
“Shut up. Anyone can have an off day.” They headed down the course toward the next flag. No golf carts here; the terrain wasn’t regular enough. No caddies either, unless Maya badgered her nephew into helping out. “Hey, I’ve been meaning to ask you something.”
“Are you trying to distract from your pathetic-ass shot? Cuz it ain’t working.”
“Don’t you worry your head about that. I’m just trying to give you a chance.”
They teased each other the rest of the way to their balls, until he managed to swing their conversation back to his question.
“Has someone been sleeping at the station?”
The fire department and the police department shared the same building, although they occupied different wings. Maya generally knew what was happening on the firehouse end of things, and vice versa with Nate, because everyone told him everything.
“You mean besides the overnight shift?”
“Yeah. I’ve noticed a couple things that don’t look right. A candy wrapper next to the toilet. A Band-Aid in the shower.”
“Maybe one of your guys got a boo-boo.” She said the words teasingly as she tapped her ball in for a two-stroke birdie. “Was it a Disney princess Band-Aid?”
“Ha ha. No, it was a Band-Aid from our med kit. The point being, everyone knows they’re supposed to clean the shower after they use it. Police side, fire side, doesn’t matter. That’s what the squeegee and the lemon-lime cleanser are for. But yesterday it was a mess. Mud in the corners, soggy Band-Aid blocking the drain.”
“Okay, Martha Stewart. That must have been a tough moment for you.”
“It was. It really was.” Nate gave a mock-shudder as he strolled to his ball. Like all firefighters, he knew how important it was to maintain order in the firehouse. “I interrogated the dispatcher, but it wasn’t her. She said, and I quote, ‘I’d rather rinse off in the harbor than use that shower.’ Which reminds me that we should consider a renovation.”
“Put it on the agenda.” More thoughtful now, she leaned on her club as he tapped his ball in the general direction of the hole. A eagle chirped nearby, and a swirl of wind ruffled the brightly dying leaves of a birch tree. “To answer your question, no, I’m not aware of anyone unauthorized using the shower. What about the candy wrapper? Any clues from that?”
“See, this is why you’re the detective and I’m just the dude who rescues people. I think it was a Twix but I threw it away so I’m not sure.”
“Never throw away evidence,” Maya told him sternly. “You really ought to know these things by now.”
“At the time, it was a random piece of trash. I didn’t know it was evidence until I saw the shower.” Finally, he sank his ball into the hole. “I have a feeling you’re going to win this one.”
“It’s just one hole. You aren’t giving up yet, are you?”
“Hell no. I have faith. And dimples.” He flashed his prettiest smile at her. She rolled her eyes as they walked to the next tee.
“Have you mentioned it to the fire chief?”
“No. He’s got bigger things to worry about than a candy wrapper.”
“You’re still scared of him, aren’t you?”
“Hell yes.” Nate was only half joking. Darius Boone had taken charge a few months ago and he still didn’t know what to make of the guy. He was the strict and intimidating type of chief, very different from Nate’s style.
“Why don’t you set up a hidden camera?” With her usual precise movements, Maya set herself up for the next long shot
“It’s not that important. Hell, if someone needs a shower that bad, they can have at it. I’m all for greater cleanliness in Lost Harbor. Maybe I should spread the word to the community.” Lost Harbor still had a few old-school rugged mountain-man types who rarely showered in the winter. They lived in cabins with no plumbing and didn’t like to disrobe long enough to immerse themselves in water. They emerged in the spring with bushy beards and dirt-encrusted clothes and no real sense of how rank they smelled.
Nate knew this because he’d been part of several rescues during which he’d been very grateful for a dust mask.
“You better not,” warned Maya. “I use that shower, and I object. I love this town, but cleanliness is next to Maya-ness in my book. No weird-ass crusty old dudes in the shower. Got it?”
“Got it. Maybe I’ll camp out tonight at the station. Want to have a slumber party?”
“Absolutely not.” She swung her golf club and landed another perfect shot. “The primary condition of my employment is that I never have to sleep on the job. I’m a big fan of my bed.”
“Fine,” he grumbled. “You’re demoted again. Now you’re a fake friend.”
“And golf dominatrix.”
“That too.” He tanked another shot and cringed. “Damn, this is not my day.”
“Has the cute lady doctor been keeping you up?”
“Okay, now you’re just being mean. That went nowhere. I was home by eight that night. Haven’t seen her since.”
“Pretty much. While we were on the date, she demoted it from a date to a conversation. It was probably a low point in my social life.”
“So what, no chemistry? What was the problem?”
He considered that question, golf club hoisted onto one shoulder. “Actually, I’d say we had plenty of chemistry. The time kind of flew. I had fun with her. She’s a cool person. Good sense of humor. Intelligent. Intriguing. The kind of woman I wouldn’t mind getting to know better.”
Maya squinted at him in that no-nonsense way of hers. “Is that a crush I hear?”
“Better not be. I’m not the kind of guy she’d ever go for. She’s too classy for the likes of me.”
Snorting with indignation, Maya reached her ball and lined up for the next shot. “Oh hell no. No one looks down at my boy that way. I’mma have to have words with that heifer.”
When Maya code-switched like that, he knew she meant business.
“Well, look at you. I just promoted you back to BFF. Congratulations,” he told her.
She shrugged and sank her birdie. “As long as I’m still—”
“Golf dominatrix, yes. No question there.”
Chapter Six
After Maya finished kicking his ass on the golf course, Nate drove back to his house, which sat atop a nearby hill like some kind of pioneer fortress ready to take on an invading army.
When his parents, who were adventure-seekers with a small inheritance, had first chosen to move to Lost Harbor, they’d hired a helicopter to fly them around the area. They’d chosen the Hilltop Homestead location, as they called it, for its three-hundred-and-sixty-degree views.
Being completely new to Alaska, they hadn’t thought about what the roads would be like in the winter. Or what it would take to heat it with all those floor-to-ceiling picture windows. Nate and his brothers had learned how to chop wood starting at age five. He still spent a good amount of time every autumn chain-sawing the dead spruce on the property and stacking it in the woodshed to season in time for the next winter.
His happy-go-lucky parents had stayed in Lost Harbor for eighteen years—long enough to survive a tragedy and get Nate through high school. Then they’d moved to Charleston, South Carolina, to be closer to his grandparents, leaving the house to Nate.
His two brothers had already moved away, and thought he was crazy for wanting to stay in Lost Harbor. But Nate had traveled quite a bit outside Alaska; he’d seen plenty of the rest of the world. For some reason, the tiny little harbor town always drew him back.
As if there was a mystery he couldn’t yet solve, a puzzle to wrestle with. Or a memory he didn’t want to leave behind.
Like the ridiculous, impractical glassed-in cupola room on top of the house. It was a space fit for a princess, a place for dreams and fairy tales. A place for the baby girl his parents had longed for. When he was seven, his sister Sabrina had been born. Eight months later, she was gone. And now the cupola sat like an empty snow globe perched on the roof. A ghost globe.
Damn, letting his thoughts wander toward Sabrina didn’t do anyone any good. Nate quickly showered and changed into his Lost Harbor Fire Department work clothes, then headed for the station.
At the firehouse, he made a quick inspection for signs of a secret intruder.
In the sleeping quarters, where two cots provided the only overnight accommodations, he noticed a blanket that had been folded incorrectly.
The change jar, in which they stored quarters for the vending machine, was about an inch lower than the last time he’d checked it. All the volunteers were in the habit of adding to the jar whenever they had extra change. Everyone used it on a regular basis. But no one had ever made the level drop so much in one day.
Then there was the kitten calendar, which the police department had given them as a joke Christmas present. Every month showed a different adorable, fluffy kitten. Clearly its target audience was either little girls or cat ladies, but the fire department had embraced it without a second’s thought.
In fact, they added thought balloons to each month’s kitten. Somehow, all the kittens seemed to think very poorly of the police department.
At any rate, the calendar was off-kilter, as if someone had taken it down to leaf through all the months.
It was the kind of thing that only someone like Nate, who took the order and cleanliness of the firehouse very much to heart, would notice. But he did, and dammit, it pissed him off that someone felt free to come into his domain and mess around after hours. Not cool.
He couldn’t wait to stake out the firehouse that night. If some crusty old trapper thought he could make use of the facilities without so much as a “please,” he was in for a rude awakening.
The rest of day went by quickly.
Dirk O’Leary, who ran a boatyard, slipped on fresh ice outside his shop and couldn’t get back up. Nate and one of the volunteers strapped on their cleats and got him back on his feet.
“How about we run you over to the hospital and they take an X-ray? Make sure you haven’t broken anything.”
“Heck no. I bruised my ass, don’t need a doctor to tell me that.”
“Fair enough. If you change your mind, give us a call. We’ll hook you up with a ride in the paramedic van.”
Nate hoped he’d change his mind because maybe Bethany would be on shift. Silly, he knew, since she wasn’t interested in him. But he liked a challenge, and he really wanted to see if he could get more smiles out of her.
The next call was a fire in the harbor. A power tool had caused a short on one of the fishing charters, and a small fire had broken out. Even as they piled into Engine One and headed for the harbor, Nate knew the fire would most likely be out by the time they arrived.
Still, a trip to the boardwalk was always a nice change of scene, even in the off-seasonwhen most of the shops were closed. Last Chance Pizza was still open a couple days a week, and they all jumped at the chance to grab a slice of pizza.
On the glassed-in deck, Nate watched the blustery wind skim the tips of the waves into creamy whitecaps as he swallowed his slice of anchovy pizza. Back at the counter, Zoe Bellini, who ran the Last Chance, was telling his crew about her trip to see her boyfriend, Padric Jeffers, perform.
Nate had a standing invitation to see Padric’s shows. Anywhere his old friend went, he could get a backstage pass, a front-row seat, a VIP ticket. But right now, the idea left him cold.
There was something here in Lost Harbor. Something keeping him here, like an invisible magnet anchoring him close to home.
“Nate!” He startled, realizing that Zoe had been calling his name for a couple of minutes. “You’re off in dreamland. What’s up?”
“Just wondering why anchovies aren’t more appreciated. These little suckers pack a punch.”
“Mama’s been pestering me about your date. Can you throw me a bone?”
“You mean a ‘boner’?”
His crew hooted with laughter, while Zoe rolled her dark eyes. She wore her curly dark hair in a pile confined by a wine-colored bandanna. “Now that was beneath you, Nate. Truly, I expect better jokes from you. What can I tell my mother so she’ll stop naming your children?”
A pang hit him right in the gut. Long ago, he’d decided never to have children. In fact, he’d been seven when he made that choice. He hadn’t changed his mind since, although at certain moments a deep longing seized him.
“Tell your mother the good doctor demands an upgrade.”
Zoe bristled. “That doesn’t sound like Bethany. From what I’ve seen, she’s a very kind and thoughtful person. She was really sweet to my mother, and you know how difficult Mama can be. I got a very good impression of her, which is why I didn’t tell Mama to leave you alone like I usually do. I thought you and Bethany would hit it off.”
And…they had. With a catch. The
catch being that he, apparently, wasn’t her kind of catch.
“Hey, all I know is what Bethany told me, which was basically ‘let’s not go on a date and say we did.’”
“Well, fine. Her loss,” Zoe said loyally. “Pizza’s on the house.”
“I don’t need pity pizza. I’m a big boy.” When Zoe raised her eyebrows skeptically, he added, “Oh, who am I kidding? Thanks for the slice. And the pity. Any beer I can cry into?”
“Meet you at the Olde Salt later? I could use one too.”
“Can’t. I’m going to be on a stakeout.”
That got everyone curious, but Nate refused to answer his crew’s questions. Just in case one of them had been misusing the facilities, he didn’t want to tip anyone off.
By the time night rolled around, his plan was in place. After the night dispatcher, who operated out of the police side of the compound, settled in with her coffee and a knitting project, Nate made a show of leaving for the night. He packed up his bag, shouted out a loud, “Good night, my pager’s on!” and clanged the big front door on the way out. He got in his truck and drove away, then parked it out of sight.
Feeling like some kind of ridiculous secret agent, he silently made his way on foot to the firehouse. A cold wind rustled the treetops. The stop sign at the intersection rattled with every gust. The temperature was dropping into the low thirties. Good chance of a hard freeze tonight. No one walked the streets of Lost Harbor on a night like this, not even a dog-walker.
Right now, he could imagine that he was the only living being between the ocean and the mountains.
When he reached the station, he used his key to slip quietly in the never-used side door, making sure it didn’t bang closed behind him. He toed off his boots and stepped across the floor of the equipment bay in stocking feet. Earlier, he’d left the door of the engine truck unlatched, so all he had to do was open it—luckily they kept all the hinges on the rigs well-oiled—and slid in. He moved into the backseat, where he knew it was impossible for anyone to spot him.
And there, he waited. And listened. And watched. And maybe slept a little, because he dreamed about moonlight, and hair like wet silk, and shining eyes filled with secrets and heart.
Seduced by Snowfall Page 4