Wild At Heart: A Novel

by Tucker, K. A.

  I look to Jonah who’s leaning back against the porch post, arms folded over his chest, a small smile touching his lips. “Did you do this?”

  He shakes his head. “It was your mom’s idea. They bought the ticket.”

  “Simon even upgraded me to first class, which was definitely a selling point for this crazy idea.” Diana waggles her eyebrows.

  “They said my gift was coming by courier and I couldn’t leave it on the porch. I thought they meant cake.” I laugh, wiping my palms across my cheeks. “When did you get in?”

  “My plane landed at 5:10 a.m.” She emphasizes the a.m. part with arched eyebrows. “I left right after work last night and I’ve been flying all night to be here.” She laughs, and catches a tear from the corner of her eye with her pinky, careful not to smear her eye makeup. “Calla, I’m running on pure adrenaline. I’m apologizing now if I pass out later.”

  “Oh my God, of course! How long are you here for?”

  “Four days. I’m catching the red-eye home on Tuesday night. I already told Beef Stick that I’m going to be useless when I show up there Wednesday.”

  “I’m so glad you’re here. Okay. So … four days. I don’t even know what we’re going to do.” I look to Jonah. “How long have you known about this?”

  “Since she called to bail on you.”

  That was the beginning of May! I shake my head. “So, there was never any weekend away?”

  He shrugs. “Had to make up something to distract you.”

  “But he promised to take us out today, so let’s go before I hit my wall and fall into a coma.” Diana takes in my rumpled pajamas that I threw back on after my shower. I’m not even wearing a bra. “You’re not dressed. Why aren’t you even dressed yet? Is this who you are now?”

  “Uh …” Because I was too busy wallowing in self-pity?

  “Of course, I would have been here hours ago if not for that debacle in Anchorage.”

  “What debacle?” I look from her to Jonah and back to her.

  She shares a secretive glance with him. “Why don’t you two help me unload my things and then I’ll tell you all about it.”

  “Really subtle, Di.” Jonah shakes his head, but he’s chuckling. He leads the way out the door and down the path to the driveway to Diana’s rental car.

  I stop dead when I spot the pearl-blue Jeep parked beside our old battered pickup truck. It’s the exact model I test-drove at the dealership.

  Diana takes a break from swatting at the buzzing mosquitos to yell, “I got to drive your birthday present before you did!”

  “What?” I spin around to face Jonah, because this could only have come from him. “You bought this for me?”

  He bites his bottom lip.

  “I can’t even …” My voice drifts, my words failing me.

  Diana is grinning ear to ear. “I was supposed to be here by eight this morning, but when I got to the hotel and asked the front desk for the keys, they couldn’t find them! So, then I had to wait for that Chris guy to come in and turn over his entire office looking for them and when he couldn’t find it, he had his wife come in, too, but she couldn’t find them, either. I finally called Jonah because I didn’t know what else to do!”

  Oh my god. It’s all making sense now. “So, you flew to Anchorage to find the keys.”

  “I had the dealership deliver the Jeep to the lodge last night when it was ready because I figured it’d be easy enough for Diana, given the time she was flying in, to cab over there and hop in. Plus, I thought it’d be funny, you know, havin’ her roll up in your birthday present. Kind of a double surprise.” Jonah’s expression sours. “But the dumb ass from the dealer who dropped it off forgot to leave the keys with the front desk. So, we had to wait for the dealership to open and track down the guy, who had both sets in his pocket.” Jonah shakes his head. “So much for making things easier.”

  “And then I somehow got lost on the way here.” Diana reaches into the passenger side and pulls out a cooler bag. Inside it is a cardboard cake box from the bakery in Toronto. “Your favorite! We need to get this in a fridge right away.”

  My mind is still on this morning’s debacle, and Jonah. “So, that’s why you were in the hangar so long? You were waiting until Diana got here.”

  And then he came home to find me on the porch, hysterical and professing my unhappiness about my life with him in Alaska.

  My stomach roils with guilt as I close the distance. “I love it. And you.” I stretch to my tiptoes and press my lips against his, lingering longer than I normally would with someone else here.

  When I pull back, he’s wearing a tiny smirk. “You had to pick the most girlie shade of blue possible, didn’t you?”

  “It’s called Bikini Pearl,” I say with a smile. “When did you decide you were getting this for me?”

  “I called the dealership after you went to test-drive it,” he admits.

  “It’s way too much, Jonah.”

  “Maybe.” His fingertips stroke my cheek as he brushes strands of hair off my face. “But I just want you to be happy here.” There’s a sadness in his icy blue eyes.

  His words are a punch to my gut, given my blowup not even ten minutes ago. “I am.” I rope my arms around his neck, pulling him into me. There’s no mistaking the tension coursing through his shoulders as I cling to him. Knowing I caused that makes my chest ache. “I didn’t mean it,” I whisper into his ear.

  He makes me feel so slight when he curls his arms around my body, drawing me flush into him. He kisses my temple. “We’ll talk about it later, okay? We need to help Diana with her things. I think she’s had the roughest morning of all of us.”

  I climb to my tiptoes to steal one last kiss and then pull away to face my best friend, my heart brimming with pure joy. “Let’s get you settled and then we can figure out what we’re going to do for the next four—”

  A glint catches my eye, drawing my attention to the diamond engagement ring on Diana’s left hand.

  My mouth drops open as she squeals.

  “We have some planning to do!”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  “He was in your house when you moved in?” Diana stares pointedly at the moose head that looms over us, the pale pink streamers haphazardly woven through his antlers. Muriel—or likely Toby, by Muriel’s instruction—decorated the Ale House in honor of my birthday, a surprise that brought a lump to my throat when we stepped through the doors to the sound of strangers singing. Muriel carried out a strawberry shortcake—made with berries from my garden that she helped herself to while we were out—loaded with candles.

  I choked my slice down, not having the heart to tell her the truth about my aversion after she’d gone to all that effort.

  “Him. Them.” I nod toward the two deer heads that Toby mounted on the other side of the long, narrow room the week after we dropped them off.

  “By the way, that lodge that Jonah had me go to get the Jeep?” She flashes a horrified look my way before bringing her martini to her red-painted lips—a special addition to tonight’s Ale House menu, for my birthday, and on the house. Teddy said Toby’s been practicing his bartending skills all week.

  I laugh. “Yeah, I know. I stayed there my first night back, when I was stuck in Anchorage.” It feels like so long ago. “But it’s not bad once you get used to it.”

  Diana’s eyes are glossy and bloodshot. She never managed to get a nap in. Soon after I showed her around, we were in the air, giving her a real look at Alaska—the vast, wild, six-million-acre expanse of the Denali National Park where she saw a grizzly bear feeding off salmon in the stream, the looming, granite-faced gorge of Ruth Glacier, the wreckage of a plane that crashed into a ridge two years ago and can’t be recovered, which I was not happy to see—before Jonah landed at an upscale mountain hotel where we had dinner reservations. It’s been nonstop since she arrived. How she’s awake is beyond me. “We’ll finish this drink and go home.”

  “No, I’m fine!” She waves off my wor
ries, her diamond ring glinting, even in the dim light.

  It brings a smile to my face, even as another wave of shock hits me.

  Diana is engaged.

  Diana is getting married. They won’t set a date until she gets a handle on balancing law school and a full-time job, but it’s coming and I’m going to be her maid of honor. That was decided years ago, before any potential suitors had even surfaced.

  The hard part? I’m now four thousand miles away.

  I knew this was the natural next step for her and Aaron, and I’m genuinely happy for her.

  But, if I’m being honest, I’ve also been feeling the weight of envy all day, at how my best friend’s life is moving along, with an exciting career and a posh apartment and her family just twenty minutes away from her. At how she didn’t have to uproot her life for any of it. She found a man who fits well into her urban, fast-paced life.

  Me? I fell in love with a sky cowboy from Alaska.

  And ever since those words tumbled from my mouth this morning, despite vehemently denying them, I haven’t been able to shake the fear that there is truth to them, that deep down inside, I know this—me here, or Jonah anywhere else—isn’t going to work.

  Am I happy here?

  I’m happy with Jonah. I love him in a way I didn’t think existed—wholly and resolutely.

  But am I happy here, in my life?

  Or have I been fooling myself into thinking that one morning I’ll wake up and things that feel foreign and temporary will finally feel like home?

  I overcompensated for my harsh words by taking every opportunity to touch Jonah today—to hold his hand, to tickle his side, to play with his beard—and prove that they’re false. He responded in kind, with smirks and squeezes and back rubs, never withholding an ounce of affection.

  But I saw it in his eyes.

  The sadness. The worry.

  Possibly the worst of all—the same doubt I’m beginning to fear.

  And now I’m helpless against that little voice in my mind that purrs terrible, dark thoughts: What if Trapper’s Crossing never feels like home? What if I grow bitter with Jonah for what he loves to do? What if he one day decides that I will never fit into Alaska the way he wants me to?

  What if I tell Jonah that I want to move, and he refuses to leave?

  It’s strange how your relationship can feel impenetrable one day and vulnerable the next—with a misunderstanding, a few words, and a mountain of repressed worries that finally swell to the surface.

  This roiling in my gut feels like the disastrous trip to the safety cabin all over again. All I want to do is fix whatever I might have broken between us, but what if we can’t get back to where we were?

  What if I stuck a pin in this bubble of delusion that we’ve both been floating in?

  For the first time since Jonah arrived in Toronto and asked me to move to Alaska, I’m truly afraid that an end date to us is inevitable, no matter how much I love him.

  I push those dour thoughts aside before my mask slips and Diana sees through me to the ache buried beneath the joy of having her here. “Relax, Di. You’ve already earned the ultimate best-friend badge so you can admit that you’re dying inside.”

  “Maybe a little bit.” She holds her manicured index finger and thumb up to measure a small space between them, before waving her hand around the Ale House. “But they did all this for you tonight. I’m not going to pull you away yet. I’ve got another hour or two in my tank. But don’t get jealous when your hot Viking has to throw me over his shoulder to get me home, because I’m already drunk.” She punctuates that declaration with a hiccup. “Also, I’ll probably cop a feel and blame it on the booze. Just so you know.”

  I shake my head and laugh, imagining Jonah’s reaction to that. Not that Diana would ever actually do it. “You have no idea how much I’ve missed you.” I didn’t realize how much until I saw her standing outside our porch.

  I steal a glance to the bar where Jonah is nursing a pint while talking to Marie, Toby, and a rosy-cheeked Teddy.

  “Do we like her or not?” Diana asks conspiratorially, following my gaze. “Because you’ve been watching her since we got here.”

  “That’s Jonah’s best friend.” Marie was sitting at the bar when I walked through the door. He obviously invited her.

  “Jonah’s best friend is a beautiful blonde?” Diana’s eyebrows arch. “You neglected to mention this. Why did you neglect to mention this to me? Your best friend?”

  Because I know exactly how my best friend would react, and I didn’t want anyone reinforcing my insecurities, especially not after I left Jonah behind in Alaska. Diana has always been mistrustful when it comes to other females, convinced that their natural instincts are competitive by nature, that a woman who is platonic friends with an attractive man is never that by choice.

  In this case, she isn’t wrong.

  But now is not the time to enlighten Diana about all things Marie, including the boundary-crossing conversation I overheard that morning in the hangar.

  “I’m watching her and Toby. I’m waiting for them to hit it off.”

  Diana frowns in thought as she studies them. “Yeah, they could work together. He’s cute enough. In that big, burly, teddy-bear kind of way.”

  “And she’s pretty, and nice,” I admit begrudgingly.

  “Maybe if he stops crushing on you, it’ll happen.”

  “Shut up! He is not!”

  Diana’s cackle turns a few heads. “Okay, Calla. We’re going to play this game, are we? Why do you never see these things?”

  “Because I don’t want to! Don’t put things like that in my head! He’s, like, my only human friend here!” I whine.

  She sighs through a sip. “Well, I’m sorry to say this, but I don’t think she’s interested. Not in Toby, anyway.” Her perfectly drawn and filled eyebrows arch as she returns her assessing gaze to the bar, to where Marie is absorbed in Jonah’s handsome face.

  Teddy says something and they erupt with laughter. Jonah throws his arm around her shoulders to jostle her, as if she was part of the punch line to a joke. She seems to sink closer into him, resting her blonde head in the crook of his neck.

  “They’re just good friends. They have been for years.” I say this even as I sense the uncomfortable prick in my stomach—the one that has been poking me since Jonah steered himself toward the bar as soon as Diana and I settled at this table.

  What I would give to go back to this morning, to erase my words, my accusations, my doubt. But I can’t, and it is making me especially sensitive to moments like this.

  “So, is this the place to be in Trapper’s Crossing?” Diana asks, taking in the sea of plaid flannel and jean-clad people—about fifty in total, forty of them men by my last count.

  “This is the only place in town. Well, besides a pizza shop that closes at ten and a community hall. I hear the farmers’ market on Fridays is hoppin’.” Muriel tried to get me there yesterday, but I was in no mood after the day I had with Roy.

  The resort is packed this weekend, as Toby promised it would be come this time of year, and it seems the Ale House is the place they all come at the end of the day, to drink and laugh and share boastful stories about the fish caught, and the fish that got away.

  “I’m so glad I came, even if it’s a short trip.” Diana rests her cheek on her palm and smiles wistfully. “I remember that night at the club, when you found out about your dad and you were trying to decide if you should go. Can you imagine if you hadn’t?”

  “I can’t.” My chest aches at the thought. Next month will be a year since that phone call from Agnes and my subsequent flight. “That would have been the worst mistake of my life.”

  “Right? And yet, could you ever have imagined yourself here, now?”

  I fumble with the tiny airplane pendant in my grasp—a gift from two of the most important men in my life—and shake my head.

  “Looks like you ladies could use another drink.” Toby appears then, replacin
g our martinis with fresh ones. They even bought proper glasses.

  Diana isn’t going to be the only one drunk if this keeps up.

  “We were just talking about you!” Diana exclaims, her blue eyes twinkling.

  Toby’s cheeks flush. “All good things, I hope?”

  “Only good things.” She winks, then lets out another hiccup. “For God’s sake, this is embarrassing. Excuse me, I need to use the bathroom. Sorry, I mean the ‘restroom.’ Be back in a minute.” Diana stands and strolls for the Ladies’ Room sign on the far side, her hips swaying a touch more than normal thanks to the alcohol flowing through her veins, her head held high as usual with confidence, earning plenty of gawking looks. In a room full of jeans, plaid jackets, and baseball caps, she’s a leggy, five-foot-ten-inch blonde siren in leather boots.

  Jonah sees her passing and steals a glance over my way. He lifts off his stool, looking ready to come over, and my excitement swells. But then Marie stops him with a hand on his forearm and asks him a question that pulls him back into the conversation with two other locals. He eases back onto the stool.

  I feel the sour expression take over my face. Am I being a jealous, slightly drunk girlfriend? Or was that an intentional move on her part?

  “So? Good birthday?” Toby asks, regarding me curiously.

  I force a smile. “Great birthday.” Despite the rocky start and this lingering sense of doom.

  He drags a chair out and settles into it, opposite me. “How surprised were you to see that Jeep roll up?”

  I didn’t see it roll up, exactly, but no need to get into the details. “More like shocked. Did you know about all this? About Diana coming?”

  “Nah …” A few beats pass and then his grin gives him away. “Yeah, I found out last week.”

  I give him a playful kick under the table. “You should have told me!”

  “You kidding? Jonah would’ve beat my ass.” His gaze drifts over to where Jonah and Marie sit, lingering on her a moment.