I know the feeling all too well.
Phil spies the cooler in Jonah’s grasp. “George mentioned he was sendin’ something from his hunt with you.”
Jonah pats the hard case. “It’s a good cut, too.”
“Yeah, he was braggin’.” Phil chuckles, and it reminds me of an old car engine, struggling to turn. “Well, come on, then. Why don’t I give you a tour around, if you want, and then we can drop that off at the house?”
“We’d love that. Right, babe?” Jonah’s eyes shine with curiosity as they dart about the property before landing on me, an odd, buoyant smile touching his lips.
I can’t help but return it and lean in to whisper, “You have such a hard-on for this guy’s place right now, don’t you?”
He loops an arm around my waist, pulling me in tightly. “I’m about to come in my pants.”
* * *
“Colette and I bought this place back in the ’80s. Spring of ’85, I think it was.” Phil pauses in front of the kitchen sink, scratching his chin in thought. “That’s right, it was my fortieth birthday. We came out this way to fish on the river. If you like fishin’, we have one of the best spots for it. There’s a whole network of rivers, west of us. People come in droves through the summer. Anyway, we fell in love with the area. I remember thinkin’ I was at least halfway to dead and needin’ to make a big move. So we did it. Almost a hundred acres, plenty to live on. Goes way back that way.” He waves a dismissive hand toward the back of the house. “Need snowshoes to get around there this time of year.”
“That’s something I haven’t tried yet,” I admit. I can’t fathom what a hundred acres looks like, but I suspect it would take hours to cross on foot. After the tour of the hangar and workshop, we climbed into a rusty red GMC pickup truck and drove here, the distance to the house too far for Phil to walk.
Phil studies me curiously. “Now that ya mention it, you don’t look like you’re from here.”
“I was born in Alaska, but I’ve lived in Toronto most of my life.”
“Huh. A city girl.” He holds up the bottle of whiskey that was sitting on the counter toward Jonah. “You thirsty?”
Jonah shakes his head. “Better not. I’ve gotta fly.”
Phil waves the bottle my way in a taunting manner. “You’re not flyin’ the plane.”
I school my expression. It’s barely noon and Phil is into the hard liquor. There’s a tumbler sitting next to the bottle and I can’t be sure whether it’s yesterday’s glass or if he’s already imbibed. What must his life be like, all alone out here? Maybe I’d be downing shots of whiskey, too. “Thanks, but we have a long day ahead of us. A glass of water would be great, though.”
“Sure, I think we’ve got a bottle somewhere in here, from when my son was here.” He shuffles over to the fridge to pull out a plastic bottle, his movements every bit that of an elderly man. I haven’t missed his use of “we” and “our” and “us” throughout our tour of his property, as if his late wife is still present. It must take awhile to adjust to the status of widow after being married to a woman for fifty years. That or Phil has no intention of ever adjusting to the idea of her being gone.
I smile in thanks as I accept the water from him.
“Got a nice, big vegetable garden back there. About a quarter acre in size. Big enough to grow a winter’s worth of preserves and all fenced off and electrified to keep the critters away during the growin’ season. You a gardener?” He’s looking directly at me.
“No, that’s more my mother’s forte.” Though she herself admits she finds more enjoyment from her rose bushes and lilacs than carrots and corn.
“Well, anyone’s thumb can turn green if they stick it in the dirt long enough,” he dismisses with a wave. “There’re also the pens where we kept the livestock.”
“Your farm, Barbie,” Jonah murmurs, earning my subtle eye roll.
“’Course, got nothin’ left but a few hens that give me my morning eggs, and Zeke.” Phil slaps that heavy tumbler down on the counter and fills it halfway with whiskey. “That ol’ goat’s nothin’ but a pain in my ass. Doesn’t like men. Has no use for me, now that Colette’s gone. Used to follow her around everywhere.”
Jonah’s face splits with a grin. “What do ya know? Calla loves goats.”
“So, how old is this place?” I ask, spearing Jonah with a warning glare. My gaze drifts over the log cabin’s wooden interior, intentionally skirting the enormous moose head that watches us from its mounted perch between two large windows. A pair of deer heads flank the fireplace. A black fur pelt trimmed with red felt hangs opposite it—I can only assume that’s a bear, because there’s no head to go with it.
I’ll never understand why people feel the need to surround themselves with the things they’ve killed.
“Let’s see … The old owners started buildin’ about ten years before us. Fell on hard times, which is why they had to sell before it was even finished. So, I guess that makes it”—he squints in thought—“close to forty-five years old, now? We’ve updated some. And we did a lot of work to the basement. All that stone was us. Colette thought’d it’d look nice. Break up the wood.”
“She was right. It does.” The log cabin is built into a small incline, allowing for a walk-out basement level with several sizeable windows. The exterior is clad in fieldstone that matches the fireplace.
“’Course there’re small things that need doin’. Trim and closets. The bathrooms could use new faucets and paint.” He takes a swig of his drink, wincing at the first bite. “You know, things you say you’re gonna tackle when you have a free weekend and then before you know it, thirty-five years have passed, your kid is gone, your wife is dead, and you’re still staring at primed drywall.” A forlorn tone lingers in his voice.
I hope I manage to hide the pity from my expression as I say, “You have a lovely home.” In a rustic, cluttered way, where the décor is dated and cobbled together, and yet cozy. Despite all the dead animals watching me.
Phil may be the only one living here—evident by the dirty dishes and empty frozen-dinner packages littering the counter, the clothes strewn over almost every piece of furniture, the visible cobwebs dangling like tinsel from the chandelier—but there’s still evidence of his late wife. The fridge’s surface is plastered with floral magnets that secure pictures of grandchildren splashing in the lake. A calendar pinned to the wall sits on September, a tidy woman’s handwriting marking appointments, a birthday, an anniversary. A hand-painted “Bless this Alaskan home” wooden sign, adorned with purple wildflowers, hangs at the threshold of the side entrance—a long, narrow corridor lined with a dozen hooks housing everything from light sweaters to hip waders. My guess is the medley of pale blue and mauve articles hanging there were Colette’s.
“It’s all hand-hewn logs, you know,” Phil says, his eyebrows arching as if sharing a shocking secret. “Colette insisted that if I was gettin’ a hangar for my toys, she was gettin’ her log house by the lake, with a big fireplace where she could spend the cold winter days. Couldn’t argue with that.” His cloudy gaze reaches the peaked ceiling of the two-story living room where the grand, rustic fieldstone hearth reaches. Cheap, worn, moss-green carpet veils the long, plank-wood floor. “A lot of good memories in that there spot. Anyway, the hangar and the workshop didn’t come for another fifteen years.”
“They look well built,” Jonah says with that same appraising tone that’s lingered in his voice since we landed.
“Oh, they are. The hangar needs a few repairs. Regular maintenance that no one can avoid. But you won’t find a place like this anywhere around here. Those builders, I tell ya.” Phil shakes his head. “I was on those guys every day like a fly on moose shit, and it shows.”
I hide my cringing smile behind a sip from my water. “Jonah’s been admiring it ever since we landed.” I shoot him a wry glance. More like Jonah has been strolling around in sub-zero temperatures with a full-blown erection for a giant metal shed.
“Hop
ed you would. George swore up and down you’d appreciate this place.” Phil swallows another hearty sip of his whiskey. “That’s why I’d rather sell to you than that couple from Homer. So, when do you reckon you’ll have the money to buy me out?”
Chapter Eight
“I’ll have the bison burger and the pale ale on tap.” Jonah folds the lodge’s menu and hands it back to Chris. “And Calla will have a steak knife to drag across my jugular.”
Chris’s bushy eyebrows arch as he regards me, his eyes shining with a mixture of delight and curiosity. “I’m guessing he deserves it?”
“Does the leek soup have dairy in it? I have an allergy.” I force a polite smile. I’m angry, but I’m also starving.
“Let me double-check. Back in a minute. I’ll bring some coasters to fix the wobble in this table.” Chris collects my menu. “And a knife to fix Jonah.” He ambles away, his cheeks lifting with his grin. He’s amused. That’s nice.
I pin my steely glare back on the man sitting across from me.
Jonah leans back, his chair creaking with the weight of his considerable frame. He regards me with a calculating stare—the kind that says he’s gauging how he’s going to persuade me to go for this harebrained idea of his, living in the woods in the middle of nowhere. “You’ve gotta admit, it’s perfect for us.”
“For us? No. Not for us. For you.”
“You wanted a place with character. What’s got more character than a log cabin with a prime view of Denali out your front door?”
“In the middle of nowhere,” I remind him.
“Trapper’s Crossing is not the middle of nowhere. Wasilla’s only twenty-five minutes away. It’s got ten thousand people and everything you need. They’ve even got a Walmart.”
“A Walmart. You think that’s what I need?”
He throws his hands in the air. “Hell, I don’t know! You’re the one who keeps bringin’ up Walmart!” His gaze furtively searches the wall behind me as if there’s a convincing argument buried somewhere within the wood paneling. “Marie lives near Wasilla.”
“Your super-close female friend who is secretly in love with you. Even better,” I mutter, though there’s no animosity to go along with that. When I met the pretty girl-next-door veterinarian, it was just after Jonah and I had kissed for the first time, and I was burning with jealousy. It was clear to anyone paying attention that she was hoping their friendship was a stepping stone to something more. Jonah himself admitted that they’d kissed once. He also said that he couldn’t give her what she wanted.
I’ve seen Marie twice since then—once at my father’s funeral—and she seems to have retreated a step, as if trying to respect an invisible boundary that’s been put in place, now that I’m in the picture. In any case, I have no issues with Marie, but it’s not exactly a selling feature for buying Phil’s place.
Jonah rolls his eyes. “She’s not in love with me.”
“We agreed on Anchorage,” I remind him.
“No. We agreed on closer to Anchorage. This is a hell of a lot closer to Anchorage than Bangor.” He folds his hands on the table in front of him. “Come on, Calla … You seriously don’t want to move to the suburbs, do you? A plain, subdivision house with a tiny yard and people on either side, lookin’ into your windows at night? A house with no character?”
I sigh with exasperation. He’s using my words against me. And, I hate to admit, effectively.
“How would I fly my planes? Where would I keep them?”
“At an airport like a normal human being. Like my father did.”
He bites his bottom lip. If I weren’t so annoyed with him, the subtle move would likely stir my blood. “This isn’t a shock, Calla. I’ve mentioned having my own landing strip. More than once.” He adds more softly, “Remember, the other night when I was landing that little toy plane on your—”
“One day!” I cut him off, flushing, my eyes darting to the nearby table to ensure the family seated there isn’t listening. “I thought that was ‘one day,’ like, five or ten years from now.” Not today.
“That’s what I thought, too. But why wait five or ten years when the perfect place is right there for the taking, now?”
“You don’t even get why I’m angry, do you?”
“Because you really want to live in a subdivision?” he says.
I give him a flat look. “How long have you known that Phil was selling his place?”
Jonah’s bearded jaw tightens. “George may have mentioned something to me about it last week,” he admits.
“So then, why didn’t you tell me last week? And don’t say you haven’t had a chance. We’ve been talking about moving every day for the past month.”
He sighs heavily. “Because I knew you’d pull out your damn map and decide that it’s too far without even hearing me out.”
“So, instead, you tricked me into going there. You lied to me. Moose meat, my ass!”
“That was not a lie.” It’s Jonah’s turn to steal a glance at the nearby family, but they seem engrossed in their own conversation. Still, he drops his voice. “George asked me to drop that off for him if we were goin’ to see the place.”
“And, what? Did you think that when I walked into a log cabin in the middle of the woods with animal heads all over the wall, I’d jump at the chance to live there?”
“Honestly? Yeah, I thought you might.”
A burst of incredulous laughter escapes me.
“What? You said so yourself, it’s beautiful there, with the mountains and the lake.”
“Yeah. To visit!”
“It’s not that remote, Calla. The place is fully functioning. A well for water, plumbing, heating, everything. Anchorage is within easy driving distance. There’s a lot of cabins in Trapper’s Crossing. It’s a big tourist area.” Frustration furrows across his forehead, the small white scar from last summer’s plane crash falling naturally into a crevice.
“I don’t like these kinds of surprises.” The life-altering ones.
“Can you blame me for tryin’?”
Maybe not. But that’s not the point. “We’re supposed to be in this together, Jonah.” I realize as I say them that I’m echoing Agnes’s words. “Don’t manipulate me to get what you want.”
“I wasn’t trying to manipulate you,” he says slowly, as if his conscience is reevaluating that declaration as he makes it.
“Maybe not intentionally, but that’s what you were doing. And that’s not you. You’ve always been open and honest. You speak your mind. That’s what I love about you.” Hadn’t I just finished thinking about how much I love that quality about him? “This deceptiveness? It isn’t you.” It’s why I never caught on to his plan, which, in hindsight, I’m an idiot to have missed.
Jonah’s lip press together. “I’m sorry. I guess I just got caught up with how perfect this place is. I was banking all my hopes on you falling in love with it when you saw it. Phil was supposed to keep quiet until I tested the idea out on you.” He picks up a salt packet, only to cast it aside. “I was hoping you’d see the potential. Or you’d at least hear me out before you shot it down.”
An unpleasant silence falls over us, Jonah’s frustration palpable.
The urge to break through it—to solve for it—overwhelms me. I wonder if I’m going to regret this. “Fine.”
Jonah’s gaze flashes to mine.
“I’ll hear you out before I shoot down the idea.” And then I’ll shoot it down.
He takes a deep breath, his demeanor visibly shifting from stark disappointment to brimming excitement as he decides where to begin. “It’d be turnkey for the charter business. I mean, we’d still have to apply for an operations license if we’re letting customers onto our property but we wouldn’t have to deal with landing strip usage fees or rent, or any of that bullshit for me to fly. I wouldn’t have to get guys in to build a proper airstrip and hangar, and all the headaches that come with that, because it’s already done. That walk-out basement is the perfect space for
an office, so I’d be around when I’m not flying. We wouldn’t be in some shitty little trailer at an airport all day.”
From sunup until sundown, as my mother often complained my father was. He was never there.
“And it’s a nice house. Well built, tons of character.”
“Dated. And unfinished. And wood-y,” I counter. With three pint-sized bedrooms and only one bathroom on the second floor.
“Nothing that can’t be finished and updated.”
“Or gutted.”
“Maybe.” He shrugs. “If anyone can make something look pretty, it’s you. Remember?” He gestures at his beard and I struggle to keep my smile at bay. I’m annoyed with him.
Jonah leans in a touch, almost conspiratorially. “And the place would come fully loaded. Phil said he’s got no use for any of it anymore. He’s moving down to live with his son. Everything comes with the sale. Everything, Calla. The old GMC pickup truck, the tractor, his-and-her snow machines and ATVs. He’s even selling his plane, if I want it. Needs some work but, with his eyesight going, he can’t fly anymore.” Jonah grimaces momentarily at the idea of that—before his expression smooths over.
“And, yeah, it’s a bit quieter around there than what you might have had in your head, but everything outside of a major city is gonna feel remote. It’s not like Bangor, though. There’s a great highway all the way to Anchorage and plenty of paved roads. As soon as you have your license, it’ll be nothing for you to drive there to get whatever you need that you can’t get nearby. But Wasilla has everything.”
I sit back and listen to Jonah ramble on about all the benefits of this location—the hunters who’ve already booked him for their fly-in this coming fall will be happier flying into Anchorage than Bangor; the tourists who come to the area in droves who’ll be looking for daily trips over the Denali mountain range—and I can’t help but find myself nodding along with him. He’s making many good points.
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