Link took his time climbing the rest of the way, then leaned against a rock near Tempest and waited for her to get over her hysterics. Her sobs intensified. Something told him that the platitudes he’d used in the past had helped cause the current problem and if he voiced one now, it would prolong the ordeal for both of them. He gazed at the distant horizon’s jagged peaks, trying to block out her tantrum.
Tempest wept louder. A chill ran down his spine and the hairs on the back of his neck quivered. Link gritted his teeth and willed himself to endure her theatrics. Tempest howled loud enough to melt bone. Her voice echoed off the rocks and boulders in a chorus of misery. The mountains in the Brooks Range were created during a cataclysm millions of years before. Had the harsh landscape resulted from one of Nature’s adolescent tantrums?
He shifted against the uncomfortable rock.
Tempest’s caterwauling gained a desperate tone.
Link rubbed his arms. “Cold wind.” He doubted if Tempest heard him over her wild, theatrical weeping. “When I like someone, I touch them.”
“Aaaugghhh.”
The gut wrenching sound skewered every cell in his body. He forced a calm tone. “I slap Stone on the back, or punch his biceps. I give Ariel brotherly hugs and kiss her on the forehead.”
“Aaaaaaeeeeuugghhh.” Tempest quivered as if she’d gutted herself.
Talking in a low, gentle pitch was harder than facing down a grizzly. “Even though we aren’t technically related, I think of you as my niece. You've known that for a long time.”
“Aaaeeeugghh!” She let out a piercing scream, which left his eardrums humming.
His patience snapped. “But if you keep acting like a raving lunatic, I’ll disown you.”
Her head shot up. Her eyes blazed with fury above dry red cheeks. The rotten imp had been pretending her heart was broken, trying to wrench his heartstrings. Trying to manipulate him. His jaw tensed so hard that he bit the inside of his cheek.
“Raving lunatic!” Tempest shook a balled fist at him. “How dare you call me that?” Perversely, Link felt like laughing in her face. “Take that back.”
He shook his head. How could he take it back, when every word and gesture proved the remark?
“How dare you call me a raving lunatic!” In the distance, a flock of ducks took off in apparent panic. Drops of water fell from their legs and briefly glistened in the sun. “You think I’m a raving lunatic?” He arched a brow. Hands fisted, Tempest vaulted from the rock. He hardened his stomach muscles a moment before first punch landed. She pummeled his abdomen and arms, one hit per word. “How dare you. I hate you. I hate, hate, hate you.” Link absorbed the hits and kept his hands at his sides.
She shook her fist in his face. “Answer me, dammit. Tell me you don’t really think I’m a raving lunatic!”
Link grabbed both of her hands with one hand of his and her chin with the other. He tilted her head back until he could look her in the eye. He wished he could fly away like the ducks instead of deal with this wild child. “Do you think I like people who scream and hit?”
“Aaaeeeeeuugghh!” Tempest’s bawl vibrated every cell of his body, severely testing his resolve. Then, her legs gave way and she landed on the ground in a dejected-looking heap.
Sensing that she needed time to calm down, he forced himself to remain calm and quiet. It was the hardest thing he had ever done.
She rubbed her cracked, red knuckles.
She sniffed.
The tension slowly ebbed from his body, replaced by a strong sense of concern for the kid, who’d had a miserable childhood. He offered her his hand. In a blink, Tempest leaped at him, trying to claw his face. He fended her off. Fists pummeling, she punched his chest. This time, her punches held more strength. Perspiration streamed down her face. He grabbed her wrists, again, and held her away. She fought like a marlin. Finally, she gave up, but was this another sham or the real thing?
“Are you done?” Dear God, let the answer be yes.
“No.” She gasped for breath. “Not until you take that back.”
“How can I take it back when every scream and assault reinforces the observation?”
She kicked at his crotch.
Link barely managed to evade the blow, but in the process of protecting himself, she got her hands free. Her fist connected with his left shoulder, and he fell back against a boulder.
Enough was enough.
Link grabbed her hands and held them in a crushing grip.
She screeched with real pain and struggled for freedom. “From now on, you’ll get treated the way your actions deserve. Right now, that’s a rabid dog or a raving lunatic,” he said between clinched teeth. “What I’d really like to do is spank you, but I won’t, because I refuse to lower myself to your level.”
This time, Tempest’s wails sounded real.
Link closed his eyes and counted to ten. The crying continued, as did the frantic wiggling. As he counted to twenty, Link fought the urge to slap some sense into Tempest, but the more he fought the desire, the more he wanted to. In self-defense, he pushed her away.
She stumbled backward a few steps, then came at him again.
He grabbed her wrists, again, but as he noticed the bruising was already beginning to show, he held her as gently as her behavior made possible, which wasn’t soft enough to avoid more damage. “What is wrong with you?” he demanded in frustration.
“I hate you.”
“Stop acting demon possessed or I’ll give you a spanking you’ll never forget.”
“You wouldn’t dare.”
“With the way you’ve been acting?” He snorted. “If you were an animal, I’d have put you out of your misery by now.”
“You mean you’d have shot me?”
Never taking his attention from her, he gave a decisive nod. “In a heartbeat.” Tempest’s eyes widened until the irises were islands in a sea of white. The silence after all the caterwauling seemed eerie. “Sit down.” Link released her and pointed at the rock she’d previously occupied. “Listen to me. And don’t make a sound. Got it?”
She shifted her feet uncomfortably.
He glared at her.
She hopped onto the rock. The expression on her face indicated that sitting on the boulder was equivalent to lying on a nest of vipers.
Link took a deep breath. “Tempest, I’ve never been more ashamed of anyone than I’ve recently been of you.” Her mouth flattened into a thin angry line. “Last year, I didn’t think anything of the way you threw yourself at me.” Her gaze darted to him, then quickly moved away. “But now you’re becoming a young woman.” Link rubbed the rigid muscles at the back of his neck. “You’ve stopped dressing in the baggy crap and started dressing like an adult, it’s time to dump the little kid routine, too.”
She stiffened, until her spine was more militaristically straight than Mavis’. And if she’d had Mavis’ letter opener, it would now be lodged in his heart.
“When you throw yourself at me, it makes me uncomfortable.” He took a deep breath. “Women don’t hug men that way unless they...” He threw up his hands. “They just don’t. Now that you’re more of a woman instead of a child, you need to act like one.” He looked her in the eye. “Do you understand what I’m trying to say?”
Mouth pressed in a thin, angry line, Tempest gave a short jerky nod.
“Would you like to say something?”
“You told me to shut up,” she snarled.
While he was certain he hadn’t used that specific phrase, Link suspected he might as well have. “Now that you’ve listened to me, I’d like to hear what you think.”
“That Jacqueline bitch put you up to this, didn’t she?” Tempest glared down the slope, at their camp. “Didn’t she?”
“Why do you keep bringing her up when this is between you and me?”
“She’s jealous of us. I saw it in her eyes when I first met her.” Tempest faced him. The anger in her glare made his stomach clench.
“What’s there
to be jealous of?”
“You can’t be that stupid.”
“You’re my niece, why should she care?”
“Niece!” Tempest’s mouth worked as if she were chewing filth.
“Okay, so we aren’t technically related. But I never thought that mattered.”
She spat toward the camp. “That’s what I think of her. I don’t know why you had to bring her along.”
“I wasn’t thrilled about that at first, either, but then I wasn’t happy about— ” He didn’t dare finish the thought.
“You didn’t want me?” Fear and disbelief fought for dominance.
“This was supposed to be a guys only trip, focused on fishing.” ‘When I was young I hated it when people tried beating around the bush or hiding their feelings.’ Jacqueline’s statement echoing in his thoughts, Link declared, “This definitely isn’t the vacation I planned or wanted.” A tear fell from the corner of Tempest’s eye. The bitterness he’d felt since Carmen and then Stone had guilted him into asking her and Phillip along shimmered like an invisible barrier between them.
As the silence lengthened, Tempest’s face turned red. “Ariel and Stone didn’t want to take me with them either.”
Was that the core of the problem? Did Tempest feel like no one wanted her? Or was this just another way to play his emotions? “Growing up is tough,” Link said. “Suddenly, we aren’t little kids that people dote on, and we have to stand on our own two feet.”
She sniffed as she lowered her gaze. “Uncle Link, I love you.”
He stepped forward and stroked her hair. “I love you – as a niece. If I didn’t care, I wouldn’t bother talking to you. Understand?”
Her lower lip trembled. “Yes.” Fast as the Sheenjek flowing past their camp, tears streamed down her cheeks.
Link shifted his gaze to the distant gleam of the river. Were these tears another form of manipulation? Was Tempest testing every feminine trick in her teenage arsenal on him? He silently counted: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and on. At 50, the tears finally stopped. He continued to 75.
He shouldered his rifle. “Ready to head back to camp?”
“No.” Tempest sniffed. “I’ll be along in a minute.”
“Don’t be long. Polar bears might have been attracted when you sounded like a wounded buffalo.”
She looked around with interest. Link doubted if any game was left in a three-mile radius of her tantrum. In fact, he suspected her howling could have scared off the devil himself, but he wasn’t about to admit that, nor, after all the role-playing she’d done and her swift jumps between love and hate, was he going to give her his rifle.
Which meant that he needed to stay nearby to protect her.
But not too near. Dealing with her emotional explosion had drained him, so Link started walking toward camp, grateful to have the worst hysterical episode he’d ever imagined behind him. As he rounded the first boulder, he came face to face with Jacqueline. She held her finger to her lips in a shushing gesture. Link had seen hundreds of people put their finger over their lips, but when Jacqueline did it, it appeared erotic. Without thinking, he gathered her into his arms, and kissed her. Warmth burst through his frozen flesh and a bright shimmering cascade of relief tumbled through his mind.
Link clasped her closer and intensified the kiss.
For a tantalizing moment, Jacqueline’s lips opened in response to his need for solace, then she stiffened and pushed against his chest. “Stop.” Her lips moved softly against his own. “If Tempest sees you, she’ll think the worst.”
Every whispered syllable caressed his lips with tiny bursts of air. He hugged her tighter. Jacqueline pushed him harder.
He kissed her harder.
She stomped on his instep. A moment later her knee started toward his most vulnerable spot. Link reflexively moved.
She leaped away, her expression suspicious.
Good God, what had he been thinking kissing a kid that way? “Sorry,” he said, “I don’t know what came over me.” Or why he still wanted to kiss her. Hold her. Find himself in her.
Jacqueline watched him, as if expecting an attack. Fearful that his need to touch her would overcome his common sense, Link shoved his hands in his pockets. Her wariness decreased, but his arms felt empty and his soul felt as barren as the windswept rocks.
“Why are you here?” he whispered.
“I heard -” She bit her lower lip, then started again, “I thought someone was being murdered.” She patted the handgun tucked into her waistband. “By the time I figured out it was just a tantrum, Tempest had quieted down, and I was afraid to leave.” Jacqueline’s cheeks flushed an endearing shade of red. “I didn’t intend to eavesdrop.”
Link rubbed his ear. “Loud as she was, I expect some seismologist in Washington State is analyzing the strange readings on his Richter graph.”
Jacqueline’s posture relaxed as she smiled. “That was the worst case of PTS I’d ever heard, but you handled her well.”
A rock shot past, missing Jacqueline’s shoulder by mere inches. Jacqueline jumped away, gave Tempest a hard look, then headed back toward camp.
Tempest made an ugly face at Jacqueline’s back.
Link wondered if anything had been resolved.
8
Hearing a stealthy noise, Jacqueline pirouetted while drawing her Walther. A clump of grass trembled in her sights. She glanced around to see if anyone had observed her. Thankfully, Tempest was ignoring her, and Link appeared to be lost in thought. Jacqueline shoved the gold damascened pistol back into place, next to her spine, then ran the tip of her tongue over her lower lip. She tasted Link.
Gooseflesh danced across her body. She told herself Link’s kiss had not meant anything to her. High above, a raven shrieked. Its taunt seemed to say ‘nothing to him, everything to you’. Link had kissed her with mind-numbing passion to release tension. She wished she could erase the tactile memory. She had two weeks before she returned to Valdez. Two weeks to think and plan. Two weeks to find a way to release herself from her faceless stalker’s terrorizing influence. Two weeks before her stalker could pick up her trail; she should use this time to get her thoughts in line so she was in an emotional position to regain control over her destiny. She squared her shoulders. She would not waste her time on her grandmother’s poorly disguised matchmaking scheme, no matter how well Link kissed.
No longer would she think of this trip as a waste of time, it would become an opportunity.
Jacqueline glanced at Link. The last thing she needed during the next two weeks was to get distracted by some stud-muffin of a possible pedophile, who treated her like a kid half the time and like the lust of his life the rest of the time.
She inhaled deeply and tasted Link. Wild, primitive emotions cascaded through her until her forehead beaded with perspiration. She gritted her teeth and willed her legs to move away from him. Relief grew with each step she put between herself and temptation. You’re acting like you’ve never been kissed. Her hiking boot connected with a rock. The stone skittered down the trail, then thudded against a boulder and stopped in a tiny cloud of dust. She wished the tactile memory would settle as quickly as the dirt. What was wrong with her? She wasn’t some ditsy teenager.
She wished her grandmother had never suggested this trip. Wished Link had let her stay in Valdez to deal with her stalker. Wished she’d never thought to run to the security of the person, who had always made her feel safe. If it hadn’t been for the faceless origami folder, she’d still be – looking for a new home and job, but at least she’d have access to her contacts and a phone. Jacqueline wished the stalker didn’t exist.
She shook her head. If she was going to wish for something, she should go farther back and wish that the lab-office building hadn’t burned and Adam hadn’t died. But wishes were for children watching shooting stars. What she needed was to turn this into a positive situation – spend the coming weeks figuring out a plan for her future – one that she wanted, not one Adam had chosen.
&nbs
p; A breeze brought Link’s calm voice wafting across the tundra. “When we get back to camp, you can help me cook.” Her perspiration chilled.
Jacqueline hurried into their camp, past Link’s tent, hopped over Phillip’s legs, as he sprawled near the campfire, reading on his iPad, then spotted Carmen, who was sitting near the river, gazing into the water, as if it held the answers to all life’s questions. Adrenaline gushed through her system giving her a jittery feeling. Jacqueline loped to the shoreline, then veered away from Carmen and followed the river’s course upstream. Her body hadn’t felt this alien since she’d had her own case of PTS. She arrived at a peaceful sandbar, and paused. A chill gripped her. She wrapped her arms around her stomach then began pacing the bank, while she centered her emotions.
“I take it that my stupid brother and the brat are okay.” Carmen, who had crept up behind her, grinned as she whirled to face her. “Too bad the kid is okay.”
“Why?”
Carmen’s warm look reminded Jacqueline of brownies fresh from the oven and full of delicious heat. “If the brat is anything like I was at that age, she only views this howling match as a minor setback.”
“Been there? Done that?”
“Oh, yeah.” Carmen sighed.
“Me, too.” Remembering some of the more foolish things she’d done when her own hormones struck, her neck heated. “It’s a wonder someone didn’t strangle me.”
“Sheesh, when I heard that kid….” Carmen hugged herself while craning her neck, as if she was looking to see if anyone else might be listening.
Jacqueline sighed. “It was a loud tantrum.”
They glanced at the trail, where Link walked as if deep in thought, and Tempest kicked pebbles, as if trying to pulverize them. Carmen chewed her lower lip. “At first I liked the kid, but now I’m wondering why he brought her.” Carmen’s mouth flattened. “Maybe I’m just being selfish.”
“How?”
“I wanted Link to get to know Phillip, but it looks like he’s going to have to spend all his time dealing with that juvenile delinquent.”
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