by Susan Stoker
Running a hand over his face, Mark said, “I should’ve come to visit.”
Zoey shrugged. “Maybe. But he didn’t love you any less because of it. He always said you were too busy saving the world to worry about little ol’ him.”
Mark chuckled, but it sounded kind of sad. “I regret it,” he said quietly.
Zoey squeezed his arm.
“I also regret not staying in better touch with Mal. Maybe it’s not too late to fix that relationship.”
Zoey did her best to keep her expression even, but she must not have done a very good job of it, because Mark asked, “What?”
“Nothing,” she said quickly, not wanting to say anything that would turn Mark off his brother. Their relationship was no business of hers. “As I said earlier, I don’t know what I should and shouldn’t say in regard to your dad. I won’t talk about him if it hurts too much.”
Mark shook his head. “No. I mean, yeah, it hurts, but I’d like to hear about him, if you’re okay talking about him.”
Zoey smiled. “How about we walk and talk?”
Mark chuckled. “You sayin’ I’m taking too many breaks, woman?”
“You said it, not me,” she sassed.
“Ma’am, yes, ma’am,” he said and gave her a smart salute, then turned back around and began walking once more.
For just a second, Zoey could totally imagine him standing there in his white dress uniform and saluting. She’d seen pictures of him wearing it. He’d recently emailed his dad a photo of him and his teammates wearing their dress whites. They were standing on a beach surrounding a man and woman who were obviously just married. She couldn’t help but drool over him just a bit. She’d always had a thing for a man in uniform, even though she’d die before admitting it.
“So, there was this one time a girl came by your dad’s house. She was selling cookies, and she was crying a little because she’d been turned down so many times. Colin invited her and her mother in and kneeled down in front of her and talked to her for about ten minutes. They talked about what subjects she liked best in school, what her favorite food was, and a million other random things. Then he asked how many boxes of cookies she had to sell—and proceeded to buy double that amount from her. When the girl left, she was smiling from ear to ear and telling her mom she couldn’t wait to tell her friends that she’d doubled the minimum requirement. He was always doing things like that. Unselfish things. Colin had a lot of money, but he never acted like it. He was just as happy eating boxed mac and cheese as he was a fifty-dollar steak.”
“What’d he do with all the cookies?” Mark asked.
Zoey looked at him in surprise. “What do you mean?”
“Pop hated those cookies. Said they tasted like crap. I know he didn’t eat them, so what’d he do with all those boxes?”
Zoey smiled. Mark might regret his relationship with his dad, but he still knew the man. Even though he hadn’t seen him in over a decade, he knew his dad. “He donated them to the homeless shelter and women’s shelter in town.”
Mark nodded. Zoey couldn’t see his face, but she had a feeling he was smiling. “Yeah, that sounds like something Pop would do. What else?”
Over the next hour or so, Zoey told Mark as many stories as she could remember about his dad. Some were sad, but most were silly and happy memories. It felt good to talk about him. When she finally ran out of stories, Mark said, “Thank you. I can tell you loved him very much.”
She did. Colin Wright could be grumpy and annoying, but couldn’t anyone? And he’d done more for her than just about anyone else in her life. He believed in her and always encouraged her to do whatever she wanted. Of course she loved him.
“Can I ask you something?” Mark asked.
“I think you just did.” She heard him chuckle, but then he turned his head and looked her in the eyes and asked, “Why did you stay in Juneau after your mom left? Did you love it there that much?”
They were still walking, and it wasn’t until Mark had turned around and wasn’t staring at her anymore that she could answer. “I guess because there wasn’t anywhere else for me to go,” she said. “That sounds kinda pathetic, now that I think about it—”
“No. No, it doesn’t,” Mark interrupted.
“It does. And don’t interrupt me,” Zoey scolded, forgetting Mark wasn’t his father for just a second. But when he merely smirked at her over his shoulder, she relaxed. “I was going to move to Anchorage, but Colin asked me to stay. That’s when he said I could rent the house near his. Honestly, he made it so easy for me to say yes. Probably why I’m thirty-one years old and have no idea what I want to be when I grow up.”
“My pop always had a way of making things seem easy,” Mark said. “That was one of the reasons I left so soon after graduating. I knew if I stayed and worked with him, even for a couple months, it would be that much harder to leave.”
Zoey thought about that for a while as they trudged along. Mark was right. His dad had made it very easy for her to stay in Juneau. She didn’t hate her life, but it wasn’t exactly all that exciting. She met a ton of happy people in the tourist shop in the summers. People who were thrilled to be on a cruise and seeing the world, and there she was, a homebody who’d never even left her home state.
She’d been so lost in her own head that she hadn’t realized Mark had stopped, and she literally ran right into him. She would’ve fallen on her ass if he didn’t have super-fast reflexes, reaching back and catching her.
“Oh, thanks. I should’ve been watching where I was going,” she said. Having Mark’s arm around her felt amazing. Comforting. It seemed to her that he was slow in letting go, but the second he did, she took a step to the side, not wanting to crowd him…or let him know how much she wanted to stay in his arms. She had to get her shit together.
“It’s fine. I should’ve warned you I’d stopped. I think this is a good place to stop for the night.”
Zoey looked around and didn’t see any difference in where they were standing now than where they’d been walking for the last half a day. “Here?”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re tired. You’re breathing harder than you were an hour ago, and you’ve been stumbling over your feet a little more. There’s a clearing over there where I can build a small lean-to, and there’s plenty of dry wood we can use for a fire.”
Zoey was embarrassed that they were stopping because of her, but remembering his earlier words about him not leaving her, she forced back the thought that he would be able to go a lot faster without her. Looking around, she still didn’t see anything that resembled a good place to put up a shelter or make a fire, but she didn’t argue. Mark was the SEAL; he would know.
“What do you need me to do?” she asked.
She didn’t understand the tender look he shot her way, but it felt good nonetheless.
“Can you see if you can gather up some wood? We’ll need smaller sticks and some larger logs.”
“Um…Mark?”
“Yeah?”
“I know you said you could do it earlier, but are you really going to start a fire by rubbing two sticks together?”
In response, he reached into one of his many pockets and pulled out a small silver block. He smiled as he showed it to her, but he didn’t explain what it was.
Zoey looked at it, then at him. “I’m sure I’m supposed to know what that is, but I don’t. A four on the outdoor comfortability scale, remember?”
He laughed, and Zoey couldn’t take her eyes off his face. So far, this being deserted in the middle of nowhere wasn’t too bad. Especially when she had someone like Mark to stare at.
“It’s a flint. It’ll throw sparks and start the fire for us.”
Of course. Zoey felt really stupid now. “Right. I knew that. Okay, I’ll find some logs for our fire then.” She started to turn around so she didn’t have to face Mr. Mountain Man, but Mark caught her arm and spun her so fast, she lost her balance and would’ve
fallen to the ground if he hadn’t caught her—again.
He pulled her into his arms, and she couldn’t help but burrow close. Once again, he was warm and she was freezing. Just being near him made her body temperature go up several degrees.
“Don’t be embarrassed,” he told her.
“You can’t just say something like that and expect it to be true,” she grumbled.
She felt more than heard his chuckle under her cheek. “Yes, I can. I’d never make fun of you, Zoey. Ever. I don’t care what you know and what you don’t. I said it before and I’ll say it again, I’m going to make sure you get back home no matter what it takes. I feel as if I got you into this mess, so I’m going to get you out.”
“You didn’t hire that woman to fly us into the Alaskan wilderness and leave us here,” she said. Then looked up at him and asked, “Did you?”
He closed his eyes and shook his head, but because he was smiling, she didn’t think he was upset with the question and had taken it as the joke she’d meant it to be.
“No, Zo, I didn’t.”
Goose bumps formed on her arms at hearing him call her Zo. No one had ever given her a nickname before. She liked it.
“You gave me something precious today, and I’ll never forget it.”
She wracked her brain trying to figure out what she’d given him and couldn’t think of one damn thing. Was he delirious? Had he hit his head when she wasn’t looking?
“Stories about my pop,” he clarified. “It’s been my experience that when people pass away, no one wants to talk about them for fear of upsetting their loved ones. But hearing about his everyday life, knowing he was happy and that you were there for him, means more to me than I can say.”
“Well, don’t get too excited, not everyone in your family liked me all that much.” Zoey knew she should’ve kept her mouth shut when he tensed against her.
“Mal?” he asked.
She nodded. “And Sean.”
“My dad’s partner?”
“Yeah. I heard him talking to Colin one night, asking why he kept me around. He said if he needed a housekeeper, he could hire a service for your dad.”
“Asshole,” Mark muttered.
“And I’m not sure his lawyer is all that fond of me either,” Zoey went on, not able to stop her runaway mouth. “When he called to tell me about the reading of the will, he didn’t sound too thrilled that I was included.”
“I don’t give a flying fuck about them,” Mark said firmly. “I like you, and that’s all that matters.”
And at that moment, standing in his arms in the middle of wherever the hell they were, that was all that mattered to Zoey too.
Eventually, Mark pulled back and said, “Come on, we need to get crackin’. I know it’s still light out, but you’re cold. I want to get a fire going so you can get warm.”
It was obvious she was more tired than she’d thought when even that little gesture made Zoey want to cry. She took a deep breath and nodded. “The good news is, we don’t have to worry about hiding a fire from any bad guy who might be following us.”
When Mark didn’t immediately respond, she asked nervously, “Right?”
“Sorry, right. You’re exactly right. And, who knows, maybe a fire in the middle of wherever we are will alert someone to the fact that people are out here, and they’ll want to investigate,” Mark said.
Zoey nodded. “I’ll gather as much wood as I can find so we can have a big fire then.”
“Perfect,” Mark told her.
Zoey turned away to start pulling her weight, but when she looked back at Mark a minute later, he was still standing where she’d left him. He was staring at her, but obviously lost in thought.
“Mark?” she asked. “Is everything okay?”
That seemed to shake him out of whatever trance he’d been in. “Yeah, sorry. Everything’s great.” Then he reached into another pocket and pulled out the knife he’d shown her earlier. He said he’d received special permission to carry it since they were on a chartered flight outside of regular security channels. Though it had been in his suitcase on his earlier flight to Anchorage.
Wondering what else he had in his pockets, Zoey got to work collecting firewood. She daydreamed about him pulling out a meatball sub sandwich. Or a satellite phone, which he’d laugh about, and then say he’d just wanted to spend time with her before calling for help.
Zoey knew she was in trouble. The more time she spent with Mark Wright, SEAL extraordinaire, the more she liked him. And this was no schoolgirl crush. This was a full-on infatuation. She’d just have to make sure she never let him know. The last thing she wanted to see was that tender look cross his face again—right before he shot her down hard.
Her life was here in Alaska, and his was in California. He’d never want a homebody like her. She’d have to enjoy spending time with him now and hold these memories close to her heart if…no, when…they finally got out of here.
Chapter Five
Bubba stared at the dancing flames in front of him without really seeing them. All his attention was on the woman in his arms. They hadn’t eaten anything for dinner, except for one Life Saver each, and were now huddled together in the small lean-to he’d made in front of the fire. Zoey was shivering, and he hated that he couldn’t do more to warm her up.
She’d been a tremendous help in setting up their small camp for the night, wanting to know what else she could do after collecting wood for their fire. He’d patiently shown her how he was making their lean-to, and she’d watched carefully as he’d used the flint in his pocket to start the fire.
After he’d set up the small snare trap with some of the twine from his pocket and sticks he’d found around the camp, and after he’d set up a system to catch water from the trees, he’d scooted up behind her, wrapped his arms around her, and did his best to warm her from behind as the fire did the same from their front.
She held herself stiff in his arms, but didn’t pull away.
“Do you want me to move away?” he asked.
Zoey immediately shook her head. “No. I mean, hugging you earlier was one thing, but lying against you like this is a little…awkward.”
“No, it’s not,” he countered. “Just relax.”
“But we’re strangers.”
“No, we aren’t. I’ve known you for more than fifteen years, Zoey.”
She shook her head. “Yeah, but I haven’t seen you for thirteen of those years, Mark.”
“Then we’re just picking up where we left off,” he told her.
She snorted, and Bubba imagined she was probably rolling her eyes. “I think I would’ve remembered us doing this in the past. I had a crush on you, you know.”
“You did?”
Zoey sighed. “Shit. There goes my mouth, overriding my good sense again.”
“If it makes you feel any better, the second I saw you, I thought you were cute.”
She turned her head and stared at him. The sun hadn’t quite set yet, and he could see the way she eyed him skeptically. “Are you just saying that to try to make me feel better?”
“Nope,” Bubba told her easily. “You had just walked into the school with your mom. You looked scared as hell, and I couldn’t blame you. Being the new kid in a high school in a place like Juneau definitely would scare the hardiest soul. But when you saw people looking at you, you raised your chin and met everyone’s eyes. I thought it was brave as hell, and I was intrigued. Not to mention the way you filled out the black jeans you had on, and the shape of your…erhm…assets under the pink T-shirt you were wearing.”
“You remember what I had on when you first saw me?” she asked, still staring at him.
Bubba tightened the arm around her waist and wrapped the other around her chest, diagonally. She settled back against him once more. Bubba felt more comfortable, now that she wasn’t staring right at him. He looked into the flickering flames of the fire as he spoke. “Yeah, I do. You were wearing Chucks, and I knew right then and there you
were cool.”
“I wasn’t cool,” she muttered.
He chuckled. “Seriously, from everything that I saw, you were nice to everyone you met. You didn’t think you were better than anyone else, and you didn’t care if someone was the class nerd or the jock, you treated everyone the same.”
“I can’t believe you remember what I was wearing,” she said with a shake of her head.
Bubba chuckled again. He couldn’t remember laughing this much in a very long time. He wasn’t a grouch, not like Phantom, but he wasn’t exactly jovial either. Even in this shitty situation, being around Zoey had him laughing more than was usual for him.
“Well, shit, if I’d known you even knew I existed, I might not’ve agreed to go out with Malcom when he asked.”
Bubba did his best not to tense. “Why did you go out with him?”
Zoey shrugged. “I figured he was as close to you as I was going to get.”
Her words seemed to echo around them in the waning light. She quickly continued. “But from the second we met at the mall, on our first date, I knew things weren’t going to work out.”
“Why?”
“Because he practically ignored me,” Zoey said. “He was too busy looking around to see who else was there, and who might be looking at him. It wasn’t until he saw one of his friends that he reached out and wrapped his arm around my shoulders. He pulled me against him and practically strangled me as he walked me to the theater. He did buy my ticket, but once inside, where no one he knew could see us, he dropped his arm and told me if I wanted a snack, I’d have to buy it myself. Then, throughout the entire movie, he kept trying to cop a feel. It was annoying, and I didn’t want to have to deal with him anymore. He insisted on walking around the mall afterward, doing the arm-around-my-neck thing once more.”
Bubba could see the picture she was painting in his head, and he didn’t like it one bit. “Mal told me that you and him made out during the entire movie and you were all over him.”
Instead of getting pissed off, Zoey laughed. “As if. Anyway, I did try a couple more dates, but they were much the same as the first, and I told him that I didn’t think we were compatible. He was pissed I was dumping him before he’d gotten into my pants, so he left me stranded at Lena Beach. I admit that I was disappointed things didn’t work out between us…but more because I’d had high hopes he would be more like you. Every time I saw you at school, you were considerate of the people around you.”