Nora turned back to look at him as she reached the doorway.
“You hungry?”
“Not hungry. Thirsty.”
Nora knew what he needed, something to warm him up inside and get rid of that waterlogged feeling. Pete’s journal, thankfully, included a log of every drink he served to his visitors. It’s why she stocked the bottom shelf with drinks just for guests, hidden neatly behind Pete’s old ugly curtains. She had a little bit of everything: tea, soda, juice, cider. And for those who liked their drinks a little stronger, there was an assortment of whiskey, rum, vodka, tequila, Irish cream, brandy, and a variety of schnapps. A light layer of dust was accumulating on the pint-sized bottles. The bottle of Scotch was the only one that had been opened, and only because Willie liked a little glass of it now and then when he visited. Somehow, she felt like she knew her neighbors because she knew what they drank, even though the only neighbor she’d met so far was Willie. If memory served her right, Jake liked hot chocolate with a hint of peppermint schnapps.
She pulled two mugs off the shelf above the table and, noticing bits of dirt on the outside of the rim, grabbed the towel that hung over the back of a chair to wipe the mug clean. She checked the other mug over, too, just to make sure it was clean. Without proper running water, it was difficult to wash dishes. And with the wood stove, dust was constantly deposited onto everything in the cabin.
“Do you mind starting a fire?”
“Sure,” he said, as he knelt down and opened the door to the stove. Nora had seen how quickly he could build a roaring fire, so she turned back to the task at hand, confident she would have a hot stove to cook over in a matter of minutes.
She pulled a can of condensed milk off one of the upper shelves, along with some cocoa powder, sugar, and a small bottle of homemade vanilla extract Willie had given her. Then she grabbed a small kettle and measured out what she estimated to be the appropriate amounts. It was a recipe she knew well. Drinking hot chocolate had practically become a nightly ritual.
She saw Jake had the fire roaring and had seated himself on the couch, with his legs stretched out comfortably in front of him and his hands clasped behind his head.
“Make yourself at home,” she said with a smile as she stirred to contents of the kettle with a wooden spoon.
Jake opened his eyes and lifted his head slightly, just long enough to respond.
“Oh, I am.” Then he leaned his head back in that restful position and closed his eyes again. “This couch feels heavenly right now.”
Nora took the kettle over to the stove. She picked up a metal rod and used it to open the burner cover enough to give her a medium heat, and sat the kettle down. Over the past few weeks, she’d gotten used to cooking on the wood stove. That’s something she never thought she’d be able to say. Then again, she’d never exactly envisioned herself living in a rustic cabin, either. And, yet, there she was.
“I know what you mean. It’s not much to look at, but that couch has got to be the most comfortable one I’ve ever had, even with those huge lumps in the cushions,” she said, still stirring the mixture. The sugar and cocoa were completely dissolved in the milk. As the chocolate warmed, it took on a deeper brown color. When a heavy steam began emanating from the chocolate, she knew it was ready. Nora picked up the kettle and moved it over to the table, and sat it down on a hot pad.
She pulled a ladle off one of the nails in the wall and used it to scoop the hot chocolate out of the kettle and into each of the mugs, filling them about three-quarters of the way full. Then, she reached down to the bottom shelf, moved a few bottles out of the way, and found the unopened bottle of peppermint schnapps. Nora poured a smidge of the schnapps into Jake’s cup, hoping she didn’t add too much. She left her hot chocolate plain.
Jake sat up as Nora walked over with his drink and handed it to him.
“Thanks. Smells good.”
He took a sip, to test how hot it was, then opened his throat and poured half the mug down his gullet.
“Mmm. You made it exactly the way I like it.”
“You sound surprised.”
“Well, I am. You and Pete are more alike than I thought,” he said, as he took another long drink and drained his mug.
Nora still stood in front of him, holding her full mug. She chuckled at how quickly he had polished off the steaming hot liquid.
“Good thing I made a kettle full. Another?” she asked, holding out her hand to take the mug back from him. But he didn’t pass the mug to her. Instead, he stood up.
“I can help myself. You sit down and relax.”
Nora obeyed, taking a seat at the far end of the couch. She settled in and watched him make another drink, noticing that he poured less of the hot chocolate into his mug and more of the peppermint schnapps.
Nora curled her legs up on the couch and sipped the hot chocolate. It was nice having Jake there. He looked like he belonged in a log cabin in the woods. He was handsomely rugged. But he was so much more than that, too. Nora couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but there was something about him. Something intriguing.
Still standing by the table, Jake turned around and leaned against the wall. He took another drink of the hot chocolate, savoring it a little more this time.
“I love this stuff. I could drink it all day,” he said.
“You talking about the hot chocolate or the peppermint schnapps?” Nora asked teasingly.
“Yes,” he said with a smile. “By the way, the place looks good. I meant to tell you yesterday. Looks like you’ve settled in nicely. Doesn’t even look like Pete’s place anymore, except for those awful curtains on the shelves.” He chuckled, remembering. The fabric was old and dingy. It featured a maritime theme. “The old man sewed those curtains himself. Even though they’re crooked as hell, he was pretty proud of himself.”
Nora glanced over at the ugly curtains with the sailboat pattern. She had hated them from the start, but hadn’t bothered to replace them. For a while, she considered taking the curtains down, but they helped hide the clutter of the shelves, so she had left them hanging there. Now, she thought maybe she would keep them as a reminder of the uncle who had given her a new start in life. She’d never known Pete, but she was thankful he’d left the house to her, even if it wasn’t what she’d expected. It was a shelter from the craziness of the world.
“Did you know him well?” she couldn’t resist asking. She knew so little of her uncle. She’d barely even known he existed before she received that letter in the mail from Mallow.
“Yeah,” he said with a look of sadness in his eyes. “He saved my life.” He chuckled a little as he recalled the first time he’d met Pete. “I was probably ten years old and I was grounded for plucking half the feathers out of one of my mom’s chickens. So I decided to run away. I stole my parents’ skiff and decided to go to Juneau. Didn’t know what direction it was, though, and I ended up down here in the back bay. I didn’t know how to recognize the wake from the rocks below the surface, and I got the boat hung up a good 20 yards out from the shore. I was still pretty determined to get to Juneau and I didn’t want my dad to find me before I got there, so I decided to swim for the shore. It was the most stupid thing I’ve ever done and I realized it right away. But the current had me and I couldn’t get back to the boat. Thought for sure I was a goner, but then Pete appeared out of nowhere and plucked me up out of the water. He brought me back here, warmed me up, fed me. Asked me what the hell I was doing out there and nearly threw me back in the water when I gave him some smart-assed response.” Jake’s smile reflected the fondness he’d felt for the old man. “Anyway, we had a good talk before he radioed my parents. He straightened me out and convinced my parents to go easy on me.”
Nora smiled. Pete was a good guy. That’s what she’d learned about him so far. She wished she knew more about him.
“Did Pete ever talk about his past? I mean, before he came to Alaska?”
“Not really. Why do you ask?”
“I don’
t know.” She shrugged her shoulders. “Remember that picture you told me about? The one of me and Pete when I was really little?”
“What about it?”
“I’ve gone through all of Pete’s stuff and I never ran across it.”
“He was buried with it,” Jake said quietly. “It was the one thing he asked for.”
The enormity of Jake’s words sunk in slowly. The photo really had meant something to Pete, then. She had meant something to him.
“You know, Pete might have been a hermit, but he was a very level-headed person,” he said, sensing Nora needed to know more about the man. “It wasn’t unusual for him to stay out here for months at a time without seeing another soul. That would drive some people crazy, but I think it kept him sane.”
Nora chuckled then. “I think I teeter back and forth between the two,” she said. If there wasn’t so much truth to her statement, it may have been funny.
“It’s a hard life out here, Nora,” said Jake reassuringly, “but I can tell you’re a survivor. You just need to find a balance.”
She nodded, thinking about his words. Balance. Seemed like Nora’s entire life had been off balance. Things had been out of focus for so long, but each day she spent there in her cabin, everything became a little clearer. She could survive there, and she believed she could even love it there. She already had begun to love the beauty of the mountains and the water that surrounded her. In spite of how much Nora had grown to love the Alaskan wilderness, she still found the isolation overwhelming. She was a little too separated from the outside world. Sure, she was starting to like the seclusion and she didn’t mind being alone quite so much anymore. It was the sheer inaccessibility she still had problems adapting to. Travel from one town to the next, which was only 80 miles away, would require half a day on the ferry and needed to be planned well in advance due to the limited ferry schedule. Nora occasionally missed being able to hop on the freeway and drive wherever she pleased. The inadequate inventory at The General Store meant she needed to order certain supplies, which in turn would require a significant wait for it to be delivered, not to mention the increased cost to have it shipped to the remote town. Even ordinary mail took three times longer to receive there than it had back in California. Maybe Jake was right. When Nora found a way to balance the isolation, the solitude, and her own happiness, maybe she would truly feel at home in the wilderness.
Nora took another sip of her hot chocolate. There was something she’d been wondering about for a while, ever since Lily mentioned that Jake had once left Alaska. As she watched him leaning against the wall, she considered whether she should ask him. Since they were being so open with each other, Nora decided to go for it.
“What made you leave here?” she asked. “All those years ago, I mean?”
He looked a little caught off guard by her question at first, but immediately relaxed.
“I guess it was the isolation. I was 24 and I wanted to see what else was out there, just like anyone else.”
“So, what brought you back here, then?”
“That’s simple. I realized what I had here was special. Very few people get to live like this, surrounded by all this beauty. I wake up to the sight of the morning sun reflecting off the snow on the mountains. The last thing I see before I go to bed is the moon reflecting off the water. Life’s harder here, but it just feels right.”
Nora didn’t say anything, but nodded her agreement. She was only now beginning to appreciate the raw beauty and harshness of the Alaskan wilderness. Even though this wasn’t what she had expected, this is where life had led her. Every day she spent surviving the wilderness, she found things felt a little more right than the day before. Even though everyday could be a struggle for survival, she actually felt like she could one day belong there.
She looked down at the mug in her hand, still half full of hot chocolate, if it could still be called hot chocolate. The concoction barely held any warmth. She drank it down in two long swallows and thought about refilling her mug. She always did have a weakness for chocolate.
When she looked up, she noticed Jake was watching her intently, his lips turned up slightly at the corners. He was still standing by the table and held the ladle in one hand and the schnapps in the other, fully equipped to replenish her cup.
“You’re right on top of things, aren’t you,” Nora said.
He grinned at that comment and a slight gleam lit up his eyes as a thought popped into his head – there’s something else I wouldn’t mind being on top of. “Refill?” he asked politely, repressing the urge to say what he was really thinking.
“Yes, but just hot chocolate. No schnapps for me.”
“Me, too,” he said, capping the bottle of schnapps and putting it back on the shelf. He poured them each one more cup of hot chocolate, emptying the kettle.
Then he walked over to where she sat on the couch. He leaned down toward her, closer than was necessary, to hand her the mug. His hand fleetingly caressed Nora’s, lingered for a second longer than was necessary. When he sat down next to her, Nora breathed in his scent and felt giddy at his nearness.
The fire crackled as the log inside the potbelly stove broke in half, and Nora noticed how warm the small room was. Is it just me, or is it getting hot in here?
She glanced out the window. Although it was still quite cloudy, the sun was high in the mid-day sky. The rain was still holding off and she felt mildly guilty that she was wasting the day inside, especially since the forecast called for rain the rest of the week. But the guilt didn’t last long, as her thoughts turned back to the man sitting next to her, sipping his drink. Nora smiled at him.
“You looked lost in thought there for a minute,” he said, watching her intently.
“Just thinking about how good this drink tastes,” Nora lied. Her stomach grumbled, then, and they both laughed.
“You like salmon? I happen to have a humpy on a line in the water back at my skiff. It would make a great dinner, if you’re up for it.”
Nora grinned. “I thought you weren’t hungry.”
“Well, it sounds like you are. Besides, I think I’ll be pretty hungry by the time we get that fish cleaned and cooked. How about it? Shall we hop in your skiff and tow my boat back here, then make some dinner?”
“Okay,” Nora agreed.
A few minutes later, they were on their way to the small cove where Jake had left his boat. He sat at the stern of Nora’s small skiff, operating the motor, since he knew where they were going. When they got to the boat, he jumped out and waded over to his own boat. He had left it on the shore, but the tide had come in and the boat, which was tied to a tree, was now floating in about a foot of water. He untied the boat and tied it to Nora’s skiff, then reached into the water and pulled a line out. A good sized salmon on the end of the line struggled fiercely to get away as Jake held it up for Nora to see. The fish must have been almost 24 inches long from head to tail, enough to feed an entire family.
“What do you think?”
“Looks good.”
He nodded, pulled a bucket out of his skiff, filled it with water, and put the fish in the bucket for the ride back to the cabin.
* * *
The salmon tasted delicious. They ate side by side at the small kitchen table, sipping red wine and chatting. By the time they finished, only a quarter of the fish remained. Nora had never realized how good salmon could taste, nor how much she could enjoy just being with another person.
“That was amazing. Thank you,” she said after eating the last bite of fish on her plate.
“More wine?” Jake held the bottle up, ready to top off her glass. She really did look amazing, sitting across from him at the table. He liked everything about her. The way she cut the food on her plate into tiny pieces. The way she took her time drinking a small glass of wine, one little sip at a time. The way she pulled her long hair back to keep it out of the way and, even better, the way her hair rested on her shoulders when she wore it down. The way she wrinkled
her nose at his bad jokes, but laughed at them anyway. There were a thousand other little things about her that drove him mad with desire. A thousand little quirks that made it very difficult for him to restrain himself around her.
“No, thanks.”
“You sure?” He knew she would say no, that she preferred to keep her mind clear. He liked that about her, too.
“You know, I think you might be trying to get me drunk,” said Nora flirtatiously as she picked up the dinner dishes, turned, and sat them in a washbasin on the shelf. “Any decent man...”
Jake stood up then, too. He couldn’t restrain himself any longer. He needed to touch her, to feel her lips on his.
The cabin felt smaller than it ever had before as Nora realized how close he was to her.
“No one’s ever accused me of being decent,” he said as he moved in behind her, trapping Nora in the corner. “And if there’s any question about my intentions, we can get that out of the way right now, if you’d like.”
His scent was more intoxicating than the alcohol and Nora closed her eyes. He was so close she could feel his breath on the back of her neck. She took a deep breath to steady herself and then opened her eyes again. Yes. He was still there. No. She wasn’t imagining it.
“I love long hair on a woman,” Jake whispered, reaching up and pulling the rubber band out of Nora’s hair and losing the long tendrils onto her shoulders and back.
Nora turned toward him, but she couldn’t bring herself to look up into his eyes. Afraid of what she might see in his eyes, Nora kept her own eyes down. Already, she found herself short of breath and her entire body tingled at the slightest touch. Making eye contact with him would be too much for her.
“Jake…”
She made the mistake of looking up at him and completely forgot what she had been planning to say. Her breath caught in her throat as Jake moved closer to her and his lips touched hers, so warm and urgent. Nora realized she had been waiting for this moment all day, maybe since the moment she first saw Jake. Her pulse quickened as she gave in to the kiss, let herself get lost in it. When the kiss ended, she didn’t pull away. She wanted more.
Water's Edge (Alaskan Frontier Romance Book 1) Page 17