“When he didn’t come back after dark and he wasn’t answering his radio, they went out to look for him. Found his ATV right where he’d left it. They tried hiking in, but it was a good mile and a half off the trail, and dark. That’s when they reported him missing. They went out again at daybreak, but they couldn’t find him.”
“They found nothing at all?”
“No, they found his radio, lying on the ground. And footprints.” His brow furrows as he studies me. He hesitates. “His and a brown bear’s.”
A sinking feeling stirs in the pit of my stomach.
“There were some empty casings lying around. It looked like he fired a few rounds before he took off. They followed both sets of prints all the way to the river where they stopped.”
“And then?” I dread the answer.
Toby shakes his head. “They combed the area but never found Deacon or the bear. The way the ground looked, they figure he stumbled down the embankment and fell into the river, got carried away. That, or the bear caught up to him while he was trying to cross. There’s usually a body when that happens, though.”
“When that happens?” I echo, my voice a touch shrill.
“If it happens,” he amends, smiling as if to ease my panic. It doesn’t reach his eyes.
“I’m …” I shake my head, unsure what to say. “I’m so sorry.”
He nods slowly. “It’s not the craziest thing in the world, for people to go missing up here. It happens more than you think. Especially when people aren’t smart. Deacon, he wasn’t smart. You don’t go out there alone.”
Silence lingers as I search for the right words. I’ve caught myself imagining what Agnes went through, when Mabel’s father didn’t arrive at his destination. That fleeting worry, as I kiss Jonah goodbye before he climbs into his plane, that it’ll be the last time I kiss him, is always present. But I’ve never imagined Jonah going out one day and disappearing without a trace. My stomach roils at the thought. “That must be hard, to not have any answers after so long.” No sense of closure. No peace.
“Yeah.” Toby scratches at his bristly beard. “My mom still drives up there and goes out looking for him every summer. I think she’s accepted reality, but she’s too stubborn to give up completely.”
“He’s her child.”
“And Deacon knew what he was doin’. There’re people who have no clue how to survive heading out into the middle of nowhere. Thinkin’ Alaska’s like any other trail hike.”
“I don’t know how anyone would go out there thinking that.” I don’t know what else to say except, “I’m sorry about your brother.”
“Yeah … So that’s why I ended up coming back to Trapper’s Crossing. Deacon was the one who wanted to take over the family business. I was workin’ at a shop in Anchorage with plans to go out on my own one day.” He shrugs. “Now I’m back here.”
Much like my father came back to Alaska Wild. Though, it was always the plan he’d run the company eventually. But tragedy struck, forcing him home sooner than he’d expected.
Clearly, Toby feels the same sense of obligation to his family’s legacy. But is he doing so willingly, or because it is expected of him?
Sometimes I wonder what I would have done, had my father—in those final weeks, once our relationship had been mended—asked that I carry on the Fletcher family business. Barring the fact that I’d have no idea how—Agnes and Jonah would surely have helped—how would I have felt, pressured into following my family’s footsteps rather than having a choice in my own path?
Toby heaves himself off his perch on the couch. “I didn’t want to tell you about it, given how nervous you already seem to be around here, but I figured you would have found out, anyway.”
And there I was, on the first day we met, making jokes about tying meat to my neck and leaving me out for the bears. No wonder he had that weird look on his face. I unwittingly stuck both feet in my mouth.
“Do me a favor?” Toby wanders over to the bookshelf and holds up the wildlife book Jonah gave me for Christmas. When he speaks again, his tone is lighter. “Promise you won’t go off in the bush alone because you’ve read this cover to cover.”
“I can’t even walk to the pen to lock the goat up without thinking something’s waiting in the trees to run out and kill me.”
He chuckles, sliding the book back in its spot. “You have a bit of a wild imagination, don’t you?”
And stories like the one about Deacon’s brother certainly don’t help, but I keep that to myself.
I’m about to offer Toby a drink when a hard knuckle raps against the glass window panel of our front door, startling me.
“See? Don’t worry. I won’t be heading into the forest alone!”
Toby’s laughter trails me as I head to answer the door. A courier waits outside, bundled in a heavy coat. He grips a thick, legal-size envelope from my father’s estate lawyer and a signature machine in his hands, the tips of the gloves cut off, his naked fingers poking out.
A strange sensation overwhelms me as I scrawl my name in the box and collect the envelope, mumbling my thanks.
I know what this is.
In the months that followed my father’s death, I’ve faced a wide range of feelings when talking about my inheritance—shock, guilt, sadness, discomfort, regret—but at no point would I say I was “excited” for it. It felt wrong to look forward to the day the money hit my bank account, given the cost—my father’s life, my family’s legacy.
But now I’m back in Alaska, living a life that I believe would make my father happy and proud, and it’s in part because of the money he left both of us.
I feel a thrill coursing through my veins over all the new possibilities.
Chapter Seventeen
“They found the bear sitting on top of the hiker, eating him!” My eyes are wide with horror as I read the rest of the report out loud. “And then it attacked and mauled three of the searchers!”
Jonah’s electric toothbrush buzzes through the cracked bathroom door, but I know he can hear me.
I continue scanning the list of fatal bear attacks, unable to shake the heavy feeling that’s been clinging to me since Toby left this afternoon, after telling me about his missing brother. “This other bear? It dragged the guy out of his tent at night. And then it mauled two other people before someone shot it!” I scan further. “Oh my God. This one? It broke into their cabin and—”
“Okay, you’re done here.” Jonah suddenly appears to shut my laptop and strip me of it in one smooth movement. He sets it on the dresser, well out of my reach.
“Don’t ever try to get me to sleep out there in a tent with you, Jonah. I don’t care if you have three loaded guns under your pillow, I’m not doing it.”
He sighs heavily, his broad, shirtless back hitting the mattress as he falls into bed. “You’re not gonna get eaten by a bear.”
“I’ll bet they thought the same thing.” I point accusingly at my laptop.
“How many people did that list name? Like, twenty? Thirty? Over the last ten years? In all of North America?”
“That they know of! And that’s Wikipedia. It’s not gospel.”
He turns onto his side to face me. “Do you know how many people die in car accidents in the US every year? Try thirty thousand. At least.”
“Yeah, I’ll take death by car crash over bear mauling for a thousand, Alex.”
He rolls his eyes. “You’re being dramatic.”
“Am I? Toby’s brother went out and never came back. How does that happen?”
“Did Toby say his brother died from a bear attack?”
“He didn’t not say it. There was definitely a bear involved.”
Jonah shifts onto his back again, his gaze on the ceiling. “There’s a hundred different ways Alaska can kill you.”
“Yeah. Not comforting.”
“A lot of people go missing every year.”
“Two thousand people. I looked it up. Twice your country’s national average. Again,
not comforting.”
“Also your country, now.”
“And Toby’s brother had a gun!”
“Remind me to thank Toby for telling you this story,” Jonah mutters.
“He didn’t want to, but I would have heard about it eventually.”
“And now you’re gonna be freaked out every time you step outside, thanks to him.”
“I already was!”
He groans. “Calla, you’ve never actually seen whatever has you spooked. You haven’t even seen the fox and that thing is around all the time.”
“Exactly my point. Who knows what else could be out there? I was doing some reading this afternoon, and I want to get cameras.”
He gives me a flat look. “Cameras?”
“Yeah. Motion-sensor cameras. Tons of people use them to see what’s coming onto their property. Even in Alaska.” And now that my bank account has more zeros than I know what to do with—my jaw dropped when I checked to confirm the deposit, because even though I knew it was coming, actually seeing it was a shock—I feel no need to worry about stressing Jonah out over finances anymore.
He pinches the bridge of his nose as if pained. Or possibly annoyed. “Did you burn something in the kitchen today? Smells like something burnt down there.”
“Uh … yeah. I was trying to bake something, but I went wrong somewhere.” I smile sheepishly. What went into the oven was a promising birthday cake for Jonah. What came out of the oven was a flat, goopy mess that had dripped over the sides to burn on the oven floor.
He chuckles. “I don’t have to fly until tomorrow afternoon. I was thinking we could drive up to Talkeetna.”
“Do they sell cameras in Talkeetna?”
He seizes my waist and pulls my body onto his with little effort. My elbows find a natural spot on either side of his head. “I have no idea. If it makes you feel safer, get cameras. You can watch moose trip the motion sensors all day long, for all I care. You’ll probably go years without seeing a bear around here.”
“And what if you’re wrong? What if one comes and you’re not around?”
“That’s why I keep tellin’ you that you need to learn how to shoot a gun.” He kisses my jawline. Such a contradictory move for his words.
“And I keep telling you that I hate guns.”
“Fine.” He smirks. “Then I guess Zeke’ll protect you.”
“That stupid goat’s going to get eaten one of these days.”
“Better him than you.” He smooths his hand down along my spine to settle on my backside, where he fills his palm with a squeeze, and pulls my body tighter against him. Beneath me, I feel him hardening.
“We’re hiring Toby to be our mechanic,” I say, before I lose my chance to bring it up tonight. “He came back to help run their resort because his brother died … disappeared … whatever. Anyway, his passion is plane engines, but he let that go to come back and help his family here, and, I don’t know, I feel like it’d be good to use him for the planes.”
“He’s gotta be a good mechanic. I’m not messin’ around with any clowns that might put me into the ground.”
“The snow machines are working great.”
“Those aren’t planes.” Jonah sighs. “I guess I should probably go and meet this guy soon, then.”
“Yeah. Definitely. You’ll like him.”
“Really? ’Cause you’re about to turn our peaceful log cabin into a fucking military base with all your surveillance, thanks to him, so I don’t think I like him too much right now.” He hooks his thumbs on the waistband of my pajama bottoms and begins drawing them down, ending our conversation.
Chapter Eighteen
May
“The guy’s coming out on Monday to quote us.”
Jonah tosses the heavy brochure on the kitchen counter. “I told you already—I can screen in the porch. It’s just two-by-twos and a couple rolls of screening.”
“And you can make it look like this?” I tap the picture of the log cabin—much like ours, only far nicer—with the enclosed porch off the front.
“Who cares what it looks like? It’ll keep the bugs out. That’s what you want, isn’t it? And at a tenth of the price that guy’s gonna charge.”
I glare at him. “Hi, have we met? I care what it looks like. And when were you going to do all this, anyway? You’ve been gone all day, every day, for the past week!” I shouldn’t complain about because it’s great for the company and has been keeping me busy with paperwork and collecting referrals, but I feel like I only see him when he’s sliding into bed at night.
“I don’t know! The next time the weather’s too shitty to fly. It’s supposed to be overcast on Monday.”
“This is more than a day’s work. Are you going to be able to finish it before the hot tub goes in?” I ask doubtfully. “Because those guys are coming in two weeks.”
“Are you kidding me?” Jonah groans. “You did not order that already.”
“I told you I was going to!” I had added it to my list of conditions for agreeing to the move—an ever-growing catalogue compiled mostly after mining “log cabin” hashtags on Instagram, searching for decorative inspiration.
“That thing was nine grand!” His booming voice carries through the house, his expression offering not a hint of humor.
“So what? We can afford it!” Which is the same thing I said to him when I climbed into the empty shell in the showroom and imagined us relaxing in it on our porch while we gazed out over the lake and the mountain range. “What we can’t afford is for me to go insane cooped up in this house once mosquito Armageddon arrives.” From what the lady in the grocery store said, it’s coming soon. Agnes has already warned me that, as bad as I thought the bugs were in Bangor, they’re a hundred times worse here, near the lake and among the trees.
Jonah shakes his head. “Wren didn’t leave you all that money so you could piss it away on custom screens and hot tubs and a fucking three-thousand-dollar fake antler chandelier!” He throws an accusatory hand toward the large box that arrived last week sitting by the fireplace. The local electrician is coming to hang it tomorrow. “You said you didn’t want it lookin’ like a hunt camp in here!”
“Hunt camps don’t have three-thousand-dollar chandeliers!” I yell as my indignation flares. “I am not pissing my money away. And he left it to me, Jonah. I don’t need your approval on how to spend it!”
“I’m not saying you need my approval,” Jonah begins through gritted teeth, as if struggling to control his temper.
A heavy knock sounds on the side door, interrupting our shouting match.
Jonah glares at it. “Is that another delivery guy? Jesus Christ, woman, what else have you bought?”
“I don’t know! Let’s find out!” I have no idea who that could be at eight a.m. and why they’d come to the side door—the barista machine I ordered couldn’t be here this quickly. Maybe it’s the new bedding. But Jonah’s attitude is making my insides burn. I storm down the hallway with him in hot pursuit and throw the door open, ignoring the fact that I’m in my pajamas.
A short, heavyset woman with a helmet of tight gray curls and a hard, weathered face waits outside.
By the way her shrewd gaze flits back and forth between us, I’ll bet she heard the shouting match.
“Hello. Can I help you?” I ask in a forced polite tone.
“You must be Calla.” Her voice is huskier than I expected. “You’re even prettier than the guys said you were.” The moment she smiles—a wide, feature-transforming grin that reaches her gray eyes—I know exactly who she is.
“You’re Toby’s mom,” I say before she can introduce herself. The resemblance is uncanny. And I’m even more embarrassed that she’s a witness to our fighting.
She thrusts out a rough-skinned hand wrapped in bandages. A hand that sees daily manual labor. “Muriel.” She turns to Jonah, sizing him up with a single astute look. “And you’re the pilot.”
“I am. Come on in.” Jonah settles a hand on the small of my b
ack—as if we weren’t just screaming at each other—and holds the door open for her to shimmy through. She heads down the long, narrow hall without pausing to remove her boots, leaving a trail of mud on our freshly finished wood that I’ll have to mop up the second she leaves.
“So, he’s been tellin’ his mom how pretty you are,” Jonah whispers.
I ignore him and move ahead, my anger set to a low boil for the moment.
“You two have been busy.” Muriel surveys our house as she ambles into the kitchen, her jeans rolled at the cuffs to fit her short legs. She seems comfortable in our home, which would make sense seeing as Toby said she was close with Colette. It must be odd, though, to have two strangers invade your friend’s space, especially when that friend died so suddenly. “I’m guessing Phil left you with quite the mess.”
“He didn’t take much with him, that’s for sure,” Jonah confirms.
He didn’t take anything with him, I silently correct.
She shakes her head. “I offered him help but he refused, obstinate old ass. He was never the sentimental one, though. It was all her.” She pauses another moment, lost in thought, and then pulls a page out of her pocket. “Toby said you’re afraid of goin’ out running on your own, so I’ve got here the name of two gals who run on Saturday mornings. Jodi and Emily. They know the area well. Meet ’em outside the Burger Shack at eight a.m. tomorrow. They’re expectin’ you.” She caps that off with a smile that’s so contradictory to her harsh tone.
“Thanks. That’s … nice of you,” I stammer. And presumptuous that I don’t have plans, that I would want to join a running group.
“You can’t live in Alaska and hide inside like a mole. You’ll go mad,” she says matter-of-factly. “How’s your garden lookin’?”
“I … uh … don’t have one yet?”
“Sure you do. That big space with the eight-foot fences out back! It can’t go to waste. You’ve gotta get the soil ready for planting. The days are long but the summers are short.” Her eyebrows arch, as if waiting for an answer.
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