“You’re serious about Phillip.”
“I love him. And I want to marry him.” Carmen’s tone sounded defeated. “But you don’t need to hear about that. I guess I’d better get back to camp.”
Jacqueline fell into step with Carmen. They traveled the short distance to the front of their tent before she asked, “What’s the problem?”
Carmen shrugged and dropped her voice to a conspiratorial level. “If I knew the answer to that, I wouldn’t need Link. I figured he could give me the male perspective.” Jacqueline had to lean close to hear her. “But he hated Phillip from first sight, so— ” Her eyes watered. Unable to continue, she ducked into the tent.
Jacqueline followed her into the canvas cocoon. “Can I help?”
Carmen wiped away a tear and gave her a lopsided smile, then whispered, “I don’t think anyone can.”
Jacqueline frowned. “Can you define the problem?”
“I’m not sure.” Carmen wiped away another tear. “Phillip and I have been going together for months. Doesn’t that sound adolescent? Going together? That’s Phillip’s term for it, not mine. We’re both twenty-seven, not seven or even seventeen. I want a husband and children, not some childish relationship. And I want Phillip.” Her eyes filled. “It seems so hopeless.”
“What did you expect Link to do? Hold a shotgun against Phillip’s back while he repeats vows?” Jacqueline widened her eyes to show that she was joking. “I mean this is Alaska and things get done sorta rough up here. Why I hear some hermits still order mail-order brides.”
Carmen’s laugh ended in a sniffle. “I want Link to get to know Phillip, and tell me if I’m wasting my time waiting for him.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Phillip is different from anyone I’ve ever dated. He’s serious. Practical. Creative. Cautious. While I’m a happy-go-lucky, romantic, impetuous and the most creative thing I’ve ever done is stick silk poinsettias into the Christmas tree for ornaments after I dropped the box of glass ones. ” Carmen sighed and knelt next to her duffel. “Maybe I’m desperate. Maybe my biological clock is ruling my mind. I don’t know.”
“And you figured Link would know?” Carmen nodded and began rocking on her heels. Jacqueline blinked, unable to imagine asking her brother for relationship advice. After all, Rory had detested Adam from the moment he’d met him. “You should know what’s right for you better than anyone else.”
“Link said you were smart for a kid.”
“I’ve told him I’m twenty-five.” Jacqueline shook her head in disbelief. “He still called me a kid?” Was that how he thought of her? Gooseflesh rippled across her body. He wouldn’t be the first who didn’t believe how old she was… If he was a pedophile and honestly thought she was a kid, it would explain why he treated her the way he did. She dug into her duffle bag, extracted her wallet and pulled out her driver’s license.
Carmen squinted at the birth date. “Don’t ask me why he calls you a kid, maybe it’s just some expression he picked up. Some days, I don’t know why I do or say something, let alone why anyone else does.”
Or maybe he just liked kids… she had to get Link and his possible issues out of her mind and deal with her own life, but Carmen’s problem baffled her and unless she understood that, she’d never be able to properly focus on her own issues. “Do you think your maternal instinct is kicking in, telling you to reproduce?” The canvas undulated.
Carmen dabbed the corner of her eye. “Until I met Phillip, I never wanted to settle down or start a family. I don’t know if I feel this way now because he’s my Mr. Right, or if it’s just a timing coincidence with my biological clock.”
“Until you met him, you never wanted kids?”
“Never.” Carmen sighed. “Of course, I never dated anyone like Phillip, before, either. I’d always dated jock types. I understand them, because they’re so much like my father and brothers.”
Jacqueline chuckled at the idea of Link being considered a jock. “My image of jock is nearer Neanderthal – guy wearing his favorite team’s jersey, while screaming at the ref on Sunday football and stuffing his face with chips and beer. What’s your definition?”
“Someone whose body is as active as their mind.”
“I call those guys well balanced.”
“Call them whatever suits you – in case you’re interested, Link’s jersey is from Texas A & M and he prefers nachos over chips, but his favorite beer is Bud, though I’ve often heard him joke that he started drinking it because he thought the frog on the old commercials was cute.”
“Hmmm. I always liked their Clydesdales.” Carmen’s expression turned from amused to strained, so Jacqueline changed the subject, “How did you meet Phillip?”
“I had a flat tire. I’d just gotten out to fix it when he jogged by.” A gentle smile lit Carmen’s lips. “Being the gentleman that he is, Phillip offered to repair it for me.” Carmen glanced out the tent flap. “He didn’t know how to change a tire and he kept trying to take off the lug nuts by tightening them. It was sorta funny and endearing.” Carmen put her fingers over her mouth, but the chuckle escaped. She shook her head. “Phillip had the greatest legs I’d ever seen, so naturally, I didn’t tell him why the bolts seemed so tight. When it looked like he was frustrated enough to leave, I suggested that maybe lug nuts were like mayonnaise lids, which turn counter clockwise to come off. Then I pretended to be amazed when my suggestion worked.”
It felt good to laugh. “How long did it take him to change your tire?”
“At least half an hour.” Carmen’s eyes glinted with amusement. “I could have had it done in twelve minutes flat. Pun intended.” She winked. “Phillip talked the whole time, and I liked listening to him. I still do.”
“But your initial interest in him was due to a false impression,” Jacqueline said.
“What do you mean?”
“You said that you liked jocks. You met Phillip when he was running. Naturally, you must have thought he fit the profile. He added to that image when he insisted on being macho and changing your tire.”
Carmen shook her head. “All this time I’ve been thinking...” She shook her head. “Underneath all that intellect, he is a jock. Isn’t he?” Since Phillip would never fit any box except ‘academic’ in her mind, Jacqueline shrugged. “I’ve been looking at him all wrong.” Carmen’s tone warmed with happiness. “Since he doesn’t play football, or any of the rough and tumble sports, I must have started thinking of him as something less than a man. That and the fact that he doesn’t pressure me for...” Her face flushed. “You know.”
“No Russian hands or Roman fingers?” Jacqueline asked. Carmen’s face flamed as she nodded. Jacqueline knew Phillip’s type: the academic sort, just like Adam. Since it wasn’t her place to warn Carmen about caring for scientists, who valued their work more than the people who loved them and expected others to set aside their own goals, which seemed inferior, Jacqueline bit the insides of her cheeks.
Tempest burst into the tent, saw them and stopped so suddenly she shuffled her feet to maintain balance. “Where’s Link?”
“He was with you,” Jacqueline said.
Carmen smiled. “Knowing him, he’s off with his fishing rod trying to catch our dinner.”
Tempest’s nose wrinkled in acute distaste. “Fish.”
“Yep,” Carmen agreed. “He loves fishing better than anything I can think of. Always has. When we were little and Mama couldn’t find him, she’d go down to the creek and he’d be sitting under the weeping willow trying to catch dinner. He caught a lot of bass, so we ate fish practically every day. For a while, I thought I’d grow gills.”
“Gross,” Tempest said.
“Grandma told me he’s spent years trying to catch a prize fish.” Jacqueline looked at Carmen.
“So much has changed, yet he still loves fishing, but it didn’t start out as fun,” Carmen said. Tempest moved as far away as she could; without exiting the tent, then back to the curved wall, settled do
wn to listen. “When I was ten, Dad had an accident. At first no one expected him to survive, but he did.” Carmen swallowed, “Except he’s a paraplegic.” Tempest’s face showed a trace for boredom, as if she’d heard this all before.
“I’m so sorry,” Jacqueline said.
“It’s okay now, but for a long time, it was rough. Really rough. All our lives changed. Link started fishing to put meat on our table. If he hadn’t, we’d probably have starved because money was that tight. Mama had been a traditional stay at home mother, but she started cleaning houses and doing anything she could to feed and shelter us. Things were tough and a family of six was a burden. We all knew that, and each of us tried to help as much as we could.” Carmen shrugged over her matter-of-fact tale. “Link delivered papers and mowed lawns. He spent all his money on food, and what he couldn’t buy, he caught.” Her expression was wistful. “I wanted to work too, but I was too young to baby-sit, except for the twins, clean our own house and cook simple stuff.”
“But surely that helped,” Jacqueline said. “Otherwise your parents would have had to pay someone.”
“Funny.” Carmen’s face twisted into an odd grin. “Lousy as I thought my efforts were, I never looked at it that way. Maybe I did help; at least I got efficient at cleaning and learned not to confuse baking powder with backing soda.” Tempest gave her an odd look. “Trust me, there is a huge difference and you do not want to substitute one for the other.”
“Like an explosion of something?”
“No, thank goodness! Just the worst possible taste.” Carmen shook her head. “We’d have starved without Link.”
Tempest’s brows knit into a small ridge. “So, Uncle Link was sort’a like your father, because he took care of you?”
“He turned into a petty tyrant, who thought he could tell everyone what to do and how to do it. He was the spitting image of my dad. Thank goodness he grew out of it.”
Tempest gave a loud snort.
Jacqueline bit her inner cheeks.
Carmen glanced out the flap and her eyes lit up. Jacqueline turned and saw Phillip, pepper spray tightly gripped in one hand, a thick book in the other, apprehensively scanning the horizon. Carmen surged to her feet. “See you later.” She ducked out of the tent.
Jacqueline wondered if her eyes had gleamed with love when she looked at Adam.
“You dress like Indiana Jones.” The tent amplified the vicious quality of Tempest’s words.
“Thank you.” Jacqueline slowly turned to face the child, and she prayed for divine guidance to defuse the situation.
Tempest growled. “You look like what you are. A Car Dew. One bitchin’ big drip that’ll evaporate.” Though the words were said with hatred, they struck Jacqueline as hilarious. She felt her lips twitch. “Your jeans are totally grungy,” Tempest added. “You look like you’ve slept in that ugly old shirt for the last year— ”
“Actually about the last three years,” she interrupted. Tempest’s mouth shut like the bite of a snapping turtle. “Since you’re interested in zoology,” Jacqueline said, “you might like to see a book on Alaskan animals that I brought along.” Tempest gave her a look people normally reserved for psychopaths. Jacqueline felt the corners of her mouth twitch up. “It’s old, but the information is still accurate.” Jacqueline rummaged in her duffel bag, feeling for the book, which she’d packed in the bottom.
“Didn’t you hear what I said?” Tempest demanded
“Sure.” She found it near the top, just under her notebook. Grandma must have repacked. “Here, Midnight Wilderness.” She thrust it toward Tempest. “It’s about the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.” Tempest looked as if she was being offered rotten fish.
“Afraid you’ll enjoy it?”
Tempest snarled, “I don’t want anything of yours. And like I told you, don’t take anything of mine.”
“Fine. Realize one thing, the five of us are alone here. If we don’t start getting along, we’re all going to be miserable. Worse, if disaster strikes, the situation could become life threatening. We all need to put aside our differences and get along.” She put the book down in front of the brat.
Tempest’s expression proclaimed that she’d rather commit murder than practice peace. “You’re such a bitch.” She grabbed the book and threw it across the small space, barely missing her face, then stormed out of the tent. The book hit the canvas wall with a dull thud, ricocheted and grazed her shoulder before collapsing on top of her sleeping bag.
“I don’t know why I try,” Jacqueline told the fluttering tent flap. She wiped her damp palms on her thighs, then picked up Midnight Wilderness. As she smoothed the abused pages, a folded yellow paper fell out. Jacqueline’s heart stopped. Her joints gave out and she dropped the volume in a haphazard heap just as Link pushed the green nylon aside and peered into the tent.
“Jacqueline, are you any good at cleaning fish?” His presence seemed to fill the shelter. Engulf it. Devour the air.
Jacqueline could only stare at the paper whale lying next to Midnight Wilderness. “What?” Jacqueline fought for breath. Wildly, she told herself that there was plenty of room. But, there wasn’t.
“You’re white as a ghost.” Link hunkered down next to her and put his palm to her forehead. “You’re chilled. Did she hurt you? Are you sick?”
She tore her gaze from the paper, looked at Link and shook her head. The concern in his warm eyes sent a spark of heat to her frozen core. “I’m fine,” she lied.
“I saw Tempest come out of here. She looked ready to murder something. Are you sure you’re okay?” As if he was unwilling to sever his contract with her, Link’s hand dropped to her shoulder. Link’s thumb traced her jawbone. Heat radiated through her, like the sun melting ice. His other hand brushed her hair away from her face. “Tell me what’s wrong.”
Jacqueline gestured toward the origami orca. Link frowned, then picked up Midnight Wilderness and leafed through it until he came to a photo of a seal swimming under an iceberg.
She couldn’t believe that Link hadn’t noticed the horrible yellow threat, which meant that her stalker could contact her anywhere. Jacqueline stared at it and perspired as if suffocating heat filled the tent.
“I read this a few years ago,” Link said. “It’s good.”
“Not the book. That.” She pointed to the whale, certain it was emitting invisible tongues of flame and heating the tent. Link picked it up and examined it. The paper looked fragile in his powerful hand. Jacqueline realized how ridiculous her behavior must appear.
Link cleared his throat. “You’re into origami?”
“No.” Her voice cracked. Surprise evident, his attention riveted on her. Jacqueline wished she knew how to make him understand what finding the note meant to her. “Someone keeps leaving me notes like this.” Her throat felt dry.
“It’s cute.” Link looked from her face to the little leviathan on his palm. He frowned. “Mind if I read it?” Jacqueline nodded. Carefully, Link opened the folds.
9
Link’s bewilderment intensified as he scanned the childish scrawl:
Scorching strand. Inferno of infatuation,
inferno of endearment, inferno of desire,
inferno of love, inferno of passion,
inferno of ardor, inferno of delight,
Passion’s Fire...
you know they are mine. ALL MINE.
This is the last time I will ask.
Return what is mine—
you can’t hide from me...
you can’t hide from God.
Link looked up from the pleated page, hoping Jacqueline would explain the odd poem, but she was rocking back and forth, arms across her stomach as if in mortal pain. He wanted to scoop her up and hug away the problem, but experience had taught him that hugging kids was more dangerous than canoeing a class five wild river.
Since he didn’t want this crazy attraction to go anywhere, he reread the note. The strange tone made him want to crumple the paper in his fist. Who ha
d given her the note? Why had she brought it along if it upset her? And was she as ill as she appeared? Was it a sordid love poem, as he’d initially thought, or a threat? Though he was certain he’d been the first to unfold the thing, she acted like she knew what it said. “You’ve gotten more of these?” She managed a rigid nod, but continued rocking and wheezing for air. The tent undulated. Outside, Tempest’s tone was shrill as she chatted with Carmen.
Link settled into a more comfortable position and held the note toward her. Jacqueline shrank back as if the paper were contaminated with the plague. He moved the paper away and her terror faded to agitation. Fascinating how the paper frightened her. “How many have you gotten?”
“I never kept count.”
That sounded like a lot. “Can you guess?”
Jacqueline blanched and took several deep breaths. “They started about three years ago.”
She looked ready to either pass out or throw up. Link wished he knew how to help. Link realized he’d unconsciously been drumming his fingers on the paper and he felt like a heartless heel. “Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize. I know I’m overreacting.” Jacqueline swallowed. “Every time I see one of those notes, I turn into a blithering idiot.” She took a deep breath, exhaled slowly and stopped rocking. “The notes started about a year after I started working for Envirohab.” She cleared her throat. “At first, I thought Adam was sending them to me.”
The warmth in her tone when she said Adam’s name made Link’s teeth clench. Did she still love the guy? He told himself he didn’t care.
“They were different at first.” Jacqueline pushed her hair out of her eyes with a trembling hand. “Childish, but nicer.”
“When did they change?”
Jacqueline’s lips quivered. He remembered feeling her words spoken against his lips. Down, boy, keep it cool. “About a year ago, whoever is writing these, started using red ink.” She wiped away perspiration. “Until then, it was mainly blue, sometimes black.” She looked him square in the eye. “I never thought about it before, but I think that when the color of the ink changed to blood red, the message’s tone changed from lousy poetry to something sinister.” She bit her lip, then continued, “This may sound naïve, but I overlooked them until— ” Her voice broke. She took a breath. “Until after the fire.”
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