by Tricia Mills
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
EPILOGUE
Acknowledgements
Winter Longing
RAZORBILL
Published by the Penguin Group
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Copyright © 2010 Trish Milburn
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To those who have brought Alaska to life for me even though I’ve never been there: novelists Dana Stabenow and Jean Craighead George; the creators of Northern Exposure and Men in Trees; and the forces behind and the boat crews of The Deadliest Catch.
Mrs. Frank, my second-grade teacher, handed me the stack of valentines from my classmates. I noticed that two had the same handwriting on the outside. I opened the first.
“Have a Beary Happy Valentine’s Day.
—Spencer”
I glanced at Spencer before opening the second one. He was busy opening his own valentines. When I slid the card out of the envelope, my heart beat a little faster.
“Will you be mine?
—Spencer”
CHAPTER 1
The drone of a plane engine stopped me in my tracks, and adrenaline surged through my veins. I looked up into the cloudy, midday sky. But what I’d heard wasn’t the familiar red-and-black Piper Super Cub carrying my brand-new boyfriend. Instead, it was Harry Logan’s yellow Cessna 185, probably returning from Anchorage with another load of supplies for the residents of Tundra.
I turned my gaze toward the Aleutian Mountain Range to the east: low clouds hugged the higher points of the snow-capped, volcanic peaks. Even squinting, I couldn’t distinguish a speck of red against the white. I’d been wondering all morning how Spencer’s flying test was going. How long before he got back to town? Before he left this morning, did he eat part of the cake I’d baked for him? Had he thought of me and what we’d shared the night before?
My lips warmed at the memory of his soft, sweet lips.
“Good morning, Winter.”
Embarrassment filled me when I realized I’d been caught reliving kissing Spencer by Mrs. Kerr, our next-door neighbor, host of today’s annual Labor Day cookout and the person Mom had sent me over to help with the party preparations. She stood in the driveway with a bag of groceries in her arms and a wide smile on her face. Ack! I imagined her being able to read my thoughts, see my steamy memories.
I pushed those thoughts away and took a couple steps forward. “Can I help you with that?”
“I’ve got this one, but there’s one more in the back of the truck.”
I breathed a sigh of relief when she headed inside and I didn’t have to face her anymore. My memories were mine and mine alone. Oh, okay, so they all got spilled to my best friend, Lindsay, but that was to be expected, right? Like an inherent right of wearing the best-friend label. Equal to being American, meaning you had the right to vote and pursue happiness.
Besides, keeping that much giddiness inside without sharing it might very well do me physical harm. I didn’t want to injure myself right as my life had zoomed straight into the fantasticsphere.
Grocery bag in hand, I made my way in the back door to the Kerrs’ house, trying to keep my smile with a mind of its own under control.
“Jesse!” Mrs. Kerr called up the stairs just as I walked inside the kitchen. “Come on, sleepyhead.” She looked back at me, smiled, and shook her head. “The American male. They could sleep half their lives away if we let them.” She took the grocery bag from me and set it on the center island.
I laughed a little, thinking about how Spencer always threatened me with dire consequences if I ever woke him on a weekend day before ten. Of course, he’d get up early for flying and school, but everything else risked at least the stink eye before the magic hour of 10 a.m.
Jesse Kerr, fellow member of the Tundra School senior class and jock extraordinaire, loudly made his way down the stairs. He paused for a moment when he saw me. “Oh, hey, Winter.” Then he proceeded toward the fridge.
“Hey.” Despite living next door to each other and being in the same class, it always felt a little odd to speak to Jesse. He was friendly enough, but it wasn’t like we inhabited the same social circle. I pulled my attention away from him and refocused on his mom. “What can I do? Mom sent me over to help.”
“That was nice. Let’s see.” Mrs. Kerr scanned the kitchen. “I need some snack mix made up, and there are some cupcakes over there that need icing.” She pointed toward two trays of cooled cupcakes at the end of the far counter, and I nodded. “Jesse, you help. I’m going to go start setting up things outside.”
As soon as his mom stepped outside, Jesse met my gaze. “Run. Run for you life,” he said with lots of drama.
I laughed and headed toward the cupcakes. “Not a fan of the annual picnic?”
He shrugged. “It’s okay. Mom just goes a little overboard. We end up eating leftovers for a week.”
“So I shouldn’t tell her I think we need more hot dogs or baked beans?”
He narrowed his dark eyes. “I
f you do, you might mysteriously fall prey to random snowball attacks this winter.”
I gave him my you-don’t-scare-me look. “You do realize that can go both ways, right?”
He grinned. “Guess we’ll have to see who wins.”
I rolled my eyes and started icing cupcakes. Jesse downed the rest of his juice, then pulled the makings for snack mix out of the grocery bags.
“You sound way too chipper this morning,” Jesse said after a couple of minutes.
Only when I glanced at him did I realize I’d been whistling. Well, so what? I was happy, and nothing was going to dim that fact.
“I’m in a good mood. Live with it, grumpy boy.”
He tossed a pretzel at me, which I dodged with unusual quickness. “Hope you shoot pucks better than that.”
My taunt about his hockey prowess prompted him to pitch another pretzel and what looked like a wheat square at me. I grabbed the butter knife coated with icing and ran toward him.
He laughed and ran around the island, just barely eluding me. Each time I thought I was close enough to inflict sticky, sweet payback, he surged just out of reach. When I rounded the island a third time, I screeched to a halt. Patrice Murray, aka Jesse’s girlfriend, aka Queen Witch of Tundra School, aka Brunhilda, stood in the doorway with a less-than-attractive glare on her face. I wouldn’t have been the least bit surprised if she’d pulled an ice dagger from behind her and gone after me with mean-girl ferocity.
“What’s going on here?” she asked.
Jeez, did she have to sound as if she’d found us naked and rolling on the kitchen floor?
“It’s commonly called a food fight.” Genius. I turned my back on her to return to the cupcakes before I made my gagging face.
“Come outside. Everyone’s starting to arrive,” Patrice said.
I knew she was speaking to Jesse by the way her tone of voice had changed, to sweet with an edge of conniving.
“I need to finish this up,” Jesse said.
“Winter can finish in here.”
“Patrice—”
“I got it,” I said as I looked back at him. “Almost done anyway.”
Patrice’s face reflected victory. Let her think she’d won. What she didn’t know was that I just couldn’t stand to listen to her voice anymore. She wasted no time dragging Jesse out the door.
He might be a decently nice guy, but he had amazingly bad taste in the girlfriend department.
I finished icing the last cupcake and tossed the rest of the party mix fixings into the bowl Jesse had started.
“What’s up with the snarl on Brunhilda’s face?” Lindsay asked from the open doorway.
“I think it had something to do with me being in the same hemisphere as her boyfriend without her permission.”
Lindsay snorted. “Did you tell her that you’ve got better taste than that?”
“No. I don’t even want to speak Spencer’s name in her evil presence.” I lifted the tray of cupcakes and nodded at the bowl of party mix. “Grab that.”
We headed outside, where Mr. and Mrs. Kerr were greeting the guests flowing into their backyard, including my parents.
“Cal, Lara, good to see you,” Mr. Kerr said to Mom and Dad as Lindsay and I drew near. Judging by his enthusiasm, you’d think they’d traveled from Fairbanks for the cookout instead of from just next door.
He took a step toward us as we placed the cupcakes and party mix on one of the tables. “Lindsay, nice to see you.” He shook his head. “Winter, you’re certainly turning into a beautiful young lady. You take after your sisters.”
Was something in the grill smoke making him high? My dark hair and complexion came from Dad, while the twins’ blond beauty was directly linked to Mom’s genetics. Not to mention, I’m the odd man out in the practical-career department. Lesa planned to follow in Dad’s footsteps and become a doctor so she could tend to the medical needs of some village in the Alaskan bush. Kristen made my kindergarten teacher mom deliriously happy by studying education, though she aimed to teach Alaska history to high schoolers rather than finger painting to munchkins.
Me? My secret desire? I wanted to be a costume designer in Hollywood. Not very practical for a girl from small-town Alaska. At least I could share my dream with Spencer, whose own dream also would take him away from the cocoon of Tundra, of Alaska. I could already imagine him flying all over the world and writing about what he saw. The Bill Bryson of the air.
I smiled and uttered a “thanks” to Mr. Kerr, who (despite being a little dweeby) was a nice guy. I couldn’t hear him talk without hearing his radio commercials for Tundra Foods in my head. “Come on in to Tundra Foods! Best grocery prices in town!” Of course, no one could argue with that claim, since the Kerrs owned the only grocery in Tundra.
Lindsay hooked her arm through mine and guided me into the throng of partygoers. “Since you’ve dragged me to this, I’ve decided it’s going to serve a very important purpose.” She unlinked our arms and rubbed her hands together as she scanned the crowd. “I need a hot date when the Snow Ball rolls around, and this is the perfect place to start looking for the lucky guy.”
“O-kay.” I looked at Lindsay as if she’d been victim to a body snatching. Since when did she want to scope out Tundra’s slim pickings? “This plan came from where?”
“From hearing you go on about your little excursion with Spencer last night. You already have the hot date. I’m not going to be the only loser without one. There’s got to be someone worthy of action besides Spencer.”
I frowned at her, annoyed. I wasn’t sure why, but I felt oddly protective of my fledging romance.
She stopped scanning the crowd long enough to glance at me. “Oh, get real. You know I don’t like Spencer that way.” She snorted. “Ew. That’d be like dating one of my brothers.”
I couldn’t help it; I’d always been a little jealous of the fact that Lindsay had been friends with Spencer first. Even though the three of us were now inseparable, they’d still shared memories I’d never been a part of. But he was with me now. A wave of pure giddiness swept through me. I couldn’t wait to see him again, kiss him.
Thinking this, I stifled a squeal.
I still couldn’t believe I’d snuck out last night. It was a miracle I’d made it all the way to Spencer’s house without dropping the cake I’d baked him. I’d almost turned back before working up the guts to knock on his bedroom window, while his parents slept just across the hall. The same jittery feeling I’d felt then made my skin tingle again as I replayed the encounter in my mind for what had to be the thousandth time.
Lindsay punched me on the arm. “I fully expect more details than that pittance you gave me on the phone. So spill! I know you’re thinking about it.”
I remembered his broad and intimate smile as he’d leaned forward out of his window to reveal his shirtless torso.
“It was amazing.”
“So, what did he say when you showed up with a cake in the middle of the night?”
“He teased me, of course. Then I started babbling, saying how it was supposed to be a congratulations cake but I couldn’t wait to give it to him, so now it was a good-luck cake. At that point, I pretty much was dying of embarrassment and shoved the cake at him, told him it was carrot cake.” His favorite.
He’d taken the lid off and seen the frosted plane. The night air had caused goose bumps to pebble his skin as he leaned on the windowsill and smiled at me. “My sweet, thoughtful girlfriend.” He’d lingered on the last word, like he was savoring it.
“And then?” Lindsay prompted, pulling me from my reverie again.
“He reached out and grabbed my hand, pulled me toward him. He said he was glad I’d finally made the first move.” I’d asked him to the Snow Ball earlier in the day. It had been one of the scariest, most impulsive things I’d ever done, but also the smartest—it had gotten us to where we were now.
“Really? ”
Which was exactly the question I’d asked. “Yeah.”
Amy Peterboro, one of Lindsay’s teammates on the basketball team, stopped us to ask Lindsay something about the practice schedule. I stared off toward the mountains again, letting myself drift back to the night before, to the moment I’d been telling Lindsay about.
“Really?” My voice had sounded breathless.
“Yes, really,” he’d said. His words, cloaked in the surrounding night and full of unspoken promises, sounded extra sexy. Then his expression grew more serious. “I was afraid to risk our friendship.”
“Me too!” I said it a little too loudly, immediately embarrassed by my lack of control. Spencer put his finger against my lips, sending a delicious zing racing through me. He glanced back into the darkness of his room, apparently listening. Satisfied, he returned his attention to me. “As much as my parents adore you, I’m not sure they’d be thrilled to see you outside my bedroom window at 1 a.m.”
The sense of risk made it all the more intense when he pulled me to him and kissed me, a kiss that was deeper and more heart-pounding than our last. My hands ran over his naked shoulders, and an unexpected urgency coursed through me. I wanted it to go on forever. My fingers trailed along the goose bumps on his chest, and I felt him suppress a shiver.
“You’re freezing,” I’d said, finally breaking away.
“Funny, I feel pretty warm at the moment.” He pulled me back in.
“Hello, Mission Control to Winter.”
I glanced at Lindsay and noticed that Amy was gone.
“Sorry. I just can’t stop thinking about last night.”
“So, is he a good kisser?”
Warmth flooded my face, but I nodded. “Awesome! I’ve never felt so wonderful in my whole life. Still feel that way today.”
“Must be good if even Brunhilda can’t ruin your mood.” We navigated away from a throng of adults. “So, how late were you there?”
“About one. I finally had to leave so he could get some rest before his test this morning.” I glanced up at the sky. “He said he’d take me up for a flight after he got his license.”