Wild At Heart: A Novel

by Tucker, K. A.

  After a fifteen-second staring contest, Oscar turns and slowly limps off, disappearing into the trees.

  With a sigh of relief, I collect my bag of garden supplies and lead our fainting goat back to his pen, checking over my shoulder frequently.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  “Some towns have a main street for events. This is the hub for Trapper’s Crossing,” Muriel explains, charging toward the double doors of the blue-gray community center, a blue folder stuffed with paperwork tucked beneath her arm. “We run pretty much everything out of here. The Carnival in December, which runs over two weekends and includes our annual holiday bazaar and Christmas dinner. We had locals camped out in here during the fires three years ago, when they had to evacuate their homes. People even rent it out for weddings.” She waggles her finger at me. “You know … you and Jonah should think about that when the time comes. With the lake behind, it’s quite nice. And, if we can make enough money at this year’s carnival, we should have upgraded restroom facilities by next year.”

  “That’s … something to think about.” I school my expression—and my horror at the idea of having my wedding reception in the Trapper’s Crossing community center. Meanwhile, I can’t ignore the nervous stir in my stomach at the mention of marriage. It reminds me that there is a ring hidden somewhere in our house, meant for me. When I’ll see it again, though … who knows.

  “That there is our new covered ice rink.” She nods toward a pavilion-like structure on the other side of the enormous dusty gravel parking lot. “Cost us almost half a million dollars and five years of groveling to the Mat-Su Borough to get that put in. Poor kids finally don’t have to spend half their hockey practices shoveling snow off the ice. Anyway, it’s where we hold our market every Friday afternoon, come end of June through till mid-September, and I’ll tell ya, it’s been a blessin’ on those rainy days.”

  Inside the center is a long, simple corridor with a few empty folding tables, waiting to be used. To the right is the town’s library, a brown-and-beige room with dim lights and only a handful of bookshelf aisles. One lonely woman sits behind a desk, staring at her computer screen. To the left are double doors that, I assume, lead into the community hall. It reminds me of an elementary school—speckled gray flooring, white ceiling tiles, dim fluorescent lighting, and walls lined with team pictures and painted an unflattering lemon-yellow, a color meant to inspire cheeriness but rarely does. It even smells faintly like school—a mix of musty books, white craft glue, and industrial floor cleaner lingering in the air.

  The lights flicker overhead. “The money we earn from the carnival each year goes toward upkeep of this building, and we are in desperate need of improvements.” A worried frown mars Muriel’s face “This is the fiftieth year and, to be honest, attendance hasn’t been great lately. We’ve got to find a way to draw more people out.”

  “So … who does the marketing?” I ask casually. I don’t want to step on any toes.

  “Emily. Remember her? You went out runnin’ with her that one time.”

  The super quiet woman with zero personality? Vaguely.

  “She’s workin’ on something special for this year’s poster.”

  “A poster.” Tell me that’s not the extent of their marketing campaign?

  “Yes! We put them up all over the Mat-Su Borough. Gets people excited.”

  Right.

  “What if I helped her? I think you could use a new website and a social media campaign and …” My words fade as Muriel waves me off with a doubtful expression.

  “Emily’s got all that covered. Besides, have you ever been to a winter carnival in Alaska?”

  “Well, no. But there’s this Christmas market in Toronto—”

  “How are you supposed to convince people to come when you’ve never even been?” She shakes her head but then offers me a reassuring smile. “That social media may have worked where you come from, but none of that stuff works on people around here. Don’t worry. We’ll keep you busy.”

  I struggle to smooth the sour look from my face and trail her through another set of doors and into the hall—a dull, sterile, windowless rectangular room. A group of nine women of varying ages and one gray-haired man chatter while rearranging long tables into a horseshoe. One of them—Candace, from the Trading Post—I recognize.

  “Lift those legs, ladies!” Muriel croons in a singsong voice, as if to mask that she’s giving them an order. “Remember when Sally gouged the floor last year dragging a table? The town council was not happy about that.”

  “You’re on the council, Muriel,” Candace says with a chuckle. She’s wearing the same pale blue floral-embroidered cardigan and Crocs that she always wears at her store.

  “Exactly! And I was not happy about wastin’ money to fix it.” Muriel slaps her folder on the table—in the center of the horseshoe, I note. “Go on and grab yourself a chair, Calla, and come sit next to me.”

  Several women—including Emily—offer me polite smiles as I pass, heading for a stack of chairs off to the side.

  “I found a church pew the other day and I thought of you,” Candace says, trailing after me.

  I feel my cheeks flush. “Uh, okay?” Because I’m a terrible liar who clearly needs to pray? I’ve been in the Trading Post a few times and on one trip, she asked me how my mother liked the coffee table. I balked at admitting the truth and instead told her that I hadn’t realized how expensive it would be to ship so I’ve kept it for myself.

  She chuckles. “I’m nosy. I asked Toby what you were doin’ with all these old things you keep buyin’ from me. He said you use ’em around your house. You know, turning them into somethin’ else. He said you were really good at that sort of thing.” She shrugs. “Anyway, it’s a solid piece. Worn to hell and needin’ some cleanup, but I thought you might have an idea for somethin’ like that.”

  I’ve seen church pews repurposed before, as benches, and I have to agree—there’s definite potential. “Thank you, for thinking about me.” And I genuinely mean it. “Maybe I can come by tomorrow and take a look at it?”

  She offers me a toothy grin. Something tells me she enjoys finding treasures for people.

  “Okay, everyone!” Muriel shifts her chair over to make room for me and then claps her hands. “Let’s get started. We’ve got a lot to cover tonight.”

  I steal a glance around the table to catch the mixed expressions as everyone takes their seats—everything from eager smiles to a grim stare from the older gentleman. That could be his face, or it could be a reaction to the task ahead.

  Or it could be Muriel’s abrasive, domineering manner. Toby said his mother feels a certain ownership over Trapper’s Crossing, that she has her fingers in every pot when it comes to how the town runs. She’s an elected official on the board—and reelected many times over—so people must respect her passion and fortitude.

  But I wonder what all the other residents really think of her.

  Muriel clears her throat. “First things first. Everyone, this is Calla. She’s new to the community.” Eleven sets of eyes land on me, and my cheeks burn with the attention. I do recognize some of the ladies from the Ale House, I realize. “Let’s do a quick round-table intro. Calla, this is John. He manages the overall budget. Gloria runs the volunteer schedule, you’ve already met Candace …” She goes around the table, introducing each person.

  “Now that that’s sorted, how about we start with last month’s follow-ups. John, you were going to provide a sponsorship budget update and crunch some numbers so we could figure out how to make the fireworks show bigger …”

  Muriel steers the meeting, rifling through last month’s minutes, each member giving their own updates while a small, mousy woman named Ivy takes notes. It reminds me of my corporate days, sitting around a table in a conference room, discussing projects and plans.

  I listen quietly for the next sixty minutes as they talk, struggling to quell my simmering annoyance with Muriel for so swiftly dismissing my suggestion to h
elp with the marketing. Sure, this carnival sounds as hokey as I was suspecting it might be—from the pancake breakfast right down to the karaoke competition—but so far, the only marketing that’s been discussed is Emily’s thrilling, hand-drawn poster and a quarter-page advertisement in the local newspaper a month before the event.

  I’m trying to come up with a plan for how to broach the subject with Muriel again later when I feel a jolt in my chair, followed a moment later by a shake that grows more intense by the second. Muriel’s voice drifts midsentence, and everyone moves at once, shifting out of their chairs to dive under the tables.

  “Come on!” she beckons me, easing her stout body to the floor. I follow her, dumbstruck, and soon, the group of us are huddled beneath the bank of tables, John’s wary gaze on the ceiling tiles above us.

  The shaking subsides about fifteen seconds later to a chorus of nervous laughter, before people slowly crawl out.

  “That one was close,” someone says.

  “I guess we better go and find out what kind of damage that caused.” Muriel wipes her hands over her jeans as if dusting dirt off them. “What do ya think? Five point six?”

  “Four point three.” John nods to the clock on the wall. “It’s barely crooked.”

  “Wager the first catch of the season?”

  His jowls lift with the first smile I’ve seen from him as he offers his hand, and they shake on it. “Let’s hope you catch another thirty-pounder.”

  They’re betting on the magnitude of the earthquake that just shook the ground like we’re at a race track on a casual Sunday afternoon.

  I stare at them, trying to make sense of their cavalier attitude. There’s one explanation I can think of. “Are earthquakes normal around here?” I ask.

  Chuckles and sympathetic looks answer me.

  * * *

  I stir as the mattress sinks beneath Jonah’s weight. Moments later, his hot, naked body is molding itself against my back. His lips graze my neck, and his hand slips into the front of my panties.

  “The ring of fire,” I mumble, letting my eyes adjust to the faint glow of the bedside lamp he turned on.

  “What?” Humor laces his tone as one talented finger slips inside me to caress my core.

  I roll over to face him, checking the clock on his nightstand. It’s almost one a.m. “Why didn’t you tell me that we live in the ring of fire?” That’s what the horseshoe-shaped line of volcanos in the Pacific Ocean is called. “And that Alaska has 11 percent of the world’s earthquakes and that there are on average 10,000 measured earthquakes each year, and we literally live on a fault line?” I spent hours watching the news and then reading articles about Alaska’s history with this natural disaster.

  Jonah sighs, removes his hand, and flops onto his back, whatever moment he was trying to stir effectively doused. “Is there a way to block you from accessing Wikipedia?”

  “It’s not funny! I was hiding under a table at the community center tonight, Jonah!” But at least I wasn’t home alone. I don’t know how I would’ve handled that.

  “Five point nine, up in Denali, from what I heard?”

  “Yeah. John owes Muriel a fish.” Of course her guess would be the most accurate.

  He frowns. “Who’s John?”

  “A guy at the planning committee,” I say dismissively. “You should have warned me! Why would I expect earthquakes in Alaska?”

  “Most of them are harmless.”

  “Yeah! Until the day the ground opens up and swallows us whole.”

  Jonah pinches the bridge of his nose. He’s struggling to keep his patience in check. “Honestly, it didn’t even cross my mind to warn you. That’s how not-a-big-deal it is. It’s just something you get used to. You haven’t even noticed them until now.”

  “Great. Another thing for me to get used to.” As if the long, dark winters, turbulent weather, menacing mosquitos, threatening wildlife, and general isolation aren’t enough, now I have to worry about earthquakes—and potential tsunamis. “Why are you home so late, anyway?” And why did he turn on the light?

  “I helped get some smoke jumpers back to their base camp. They’d been out there for almost four days.”

  Right. Those crazy people who jump out of planes to fight fires in remote spots. At least Jonah hasn’t told me he wants to try that. Yet.

  “We’re supposed to get some rain over the next two days.”

  “Does that mean you’ll be home?” My voice, once groggy, is suddenly brimming with hope.

  “Depends. Am I gonna have to hear about earthquakes and bear attacks all day?” Jonah rolls onto his side again. “Jim O’Keefe asked me to do a fly-in for him and his sons in the morning, if it’s clear enough.” He drags the tip of his minty-fresh tongue along my bottom lip before kissing me on the mouth. My breath can’t taste nearly as pleasant right, but he doesn’t seem to care. “I missed you.”

  My chest swells with warmth at his confession, the confirmation that he does still think about me when he’s chosen to be out there in the air.

  “Anything exciting happen today, besides the earthquake?” he asks, his hand slipping into the back of my panties to fill his palm with my flesh. He squeezes gently.

  “Muriel happened today,” I grumble, even as my body responds to his touch.

  He chuckles. Jonah always finds my stories about that woman amusing. He has an exorbitant amount of patience for her that I don’t understand. “What’d she do now?”

  “Basically told me that marketing is pointless and that I know nothing.” I relay the conversation from earlier.

  “Tell her she’s wrong. She’d be lucky to have you helping this Emily chick.”

  “She made such a big deal about how attendance has been down and how important it is that this one succeeds because they need the money for the community center, but she’s so stubborn, she’s not willing to try. It’s not like she’d even be paying me.”

  “Did you say all this to her?”

  “I was going to, but then the earthquake hit, which distracted me, and then, I don’t know, I started thinking maybe she’s right.” I shrug. “I don’t know the first thing about the people around here or marketing a winter carnival in Alaska! What if I completely screw it up? Or make no difference at all?”

  “You’re not gonna screw it up. Think about it, Calla. You didn’t know shit about planes but you designed that whole website for Wild in, like, four days.”

  “That was just a website. And it didn’t mean anything.” My father ended up selling the company right after.

  “Hey. It meant something. It was the first time I realized you had a big brain in that pretty head of yours. You impressed me.” He pauses, as if to let that sink in. “And you basically set up an entire charter plane company for us in a few months.”

  “Agnes helped me.”

  “She helped a bit, but no, it’s because you’re smart as hell and you can figure out anything if you put your mind to it. So, if this is something you want to do, then you tell Muriel that you’re doing it! End of story.”

  I chew my bottom lip in thought. His confidence in me is bolstering. “I do know a lot about online marketing.”

  “Probably a hell of a lot more than Emily or Muriel or anyone else in that room, I’m guessing.”

  “She uses Twitter to promote it!” I cornered Emily outside the library after the meeting, while Muriel was occupied, and asked her. “I’ve already found a ton of problems.”

  “Yeah? Like what?”

  “Like—” My words falter as Jonah tugs my panties down off my hips and coaxes me onto my back. Heat begins to build in my core. “Like, they have no online presence beyond their website, which is junk, and the schedule is confusing. And they need food trucks. Throw food trucks into any event and people will come, I swear.”

  “See? You sound like you know what you’re talkin’ about.”

  “Now to convince Muriel.”

  “You’ll figure out a way.” He eases my night shirt up, unc
overing my stomach and chest. I lift my arms up and over my head to help him slide it off completely. Goose bumps erupt over my body. “Some clever way …”

  Material tightens around my wrists and, before I understand what’s happening, my hands have been bound to the headboard using my nightshirt.

  “Jonah!” I tug at the binding in vain. “What are you doing?”

  It clicks.

  The hot tub picture.

  Oh shit. With everything that happened today, I completely forgot about it.

  But the look on Jonah’s face says he knows that I’ve finally remembered.

  This is why he turned on the light. He likes to watch me squirm.

  A hysterical laugh escapes my throat before I press my lips together. I fight the urge to wrestle against the ties. “I talked to Diana today.”

  “Oh yeah?” He throws the covers off my body and settles onto his knees, his powerful thighs coated in soft, ash-blond hair, his erection standing at attention. He’s unfazed by his nakedness. “What’d she have to say?”

  I manage to peel my attention away to meet his gaze, to find him smirking—he caught me ogling.

  “I begged her to come for my birthday, but she said she can’t.” Admitting that brings a tinge of melancholy to my tone, despite my current predicament.

  Jonah studies me for a few beats, the wicked intent in his eyes softening a touch. “I’m taking you away that weekend.”

  “Really?” My heart stutters, my pending doom pushed aside for a moment. “Where?”

  “It’s a surprise.”

  “But what if you get called into work?” Talk of drought is all that seems to be on the state news lately.

  “You’re more important to me than work, Calla,” he says evenly.

  My body feels lighter, more relaxed. I didn’t know how much I needed to hear Jonah say those words until just now.

  He hooks his index finger through the center of my panties and draws them the rest of the way off. “Is there anything else you want to tell me about?” he asks in that overly calm voice. His steely gaze drags over my body.