After school, instead of holing up in my room until dinner, I decided to sit in the dining room and grade essays. I dropped my coat and bag in my room, and then trotted back down the stairs with a stack of essays and a red pen. As I rounded the corner into the dining room, I skidded to a sudden halt.
Caleb was sitting at a table by the windows, silhouetted by a gently falling snow. He was looking down, intent on the open book in his hands. When I stepped into the dining room, he looked up at me and my stomach dipped.
Oh god.
Oh god oh god oh god.
He wore glasses to read. A pair of scholarly, slightly dweeby, horn-rimmed glasses. I stood frozen in place, staring at him. Those nerdy glasses with that messy beard and his wind-burnt cheeks and his big hands and—ugh.
He frowned, brows drawing together. He pulled his glasses off. “What do you want?” He spoke impatiently, but his voice was deep and rich, making me acutely conscious that he was a man. As if I hadn’t noticed before. But really, how dare he? How dare he be so fucking hot and also be such a massive jerk? How dare he be the first man to break me out of the numb, sexless haze I’d been living in? He’d made it clear that any attraction on my end was some kind of personal affront, so of course my stupid, masochistic brain had to fixate on him.
But that was exactly it, wasn’t it? Men who wanted me made me feel trapped, panicky. It was much better, much safer, to want somebody who didn’t want me back. Because then I’d never have to worry about getting trapped in another suffocating, inescapable relationship. I’d never have to worry that he’d try to keep hold of me the way Alex had. Because Caleb didn’t even want me in the first place.
Safe.
I relaxed a little. “Nothing,” I told him, and it was more of an answer than he realized. Nothing was exactly what I wanted.
And that’s exactly what Caleb gave me. He turned his attention back to his book, sliding his glasses back on. I ignored the little pang of lust that tightened my stomach and took a seat at the counter. I turned my back on Caleb, so I wouldn’t be distracted by the sexual potency of his mountain-man-scholar look and took the first essay off the stack. We were far from friends, but I felt safe having him at my back.
As I worked on essays, a few more people wandered into the dining room. The sound of clanking pans and running water came from the kitchen. Natasha appeared briefly to start a pot of coffee brewing, then disappeared back into the kitchen. I’d gotten through four essays when Jessica Taaltsiyh wandered in.
“Hey, Grace.” She dropped onto the stool next to me, bumping her shoulder against mine—a friendly gesture I’d seen other Teekkonlit locals do to each other. I welcomed the brief wash of warmth that pulsed through me. Just as quickly, it faded.
I set my essays aside and talked with Jess as more and more regulars filtered in for dinner. Elena Morris came in and took the seat on my other side, nudging her shoulder against mine the same as Jess had done.
“Have you gotten out of town yet?” Elena asked. “Seen the mountains up close?”
I shook my head. “I want to. I keep meaning to.”
“We’ll take you,” Jess decided. “Me and Elena. This weekend?”
Elena shook her head. “I’m going to be in Eagle Ridge this weekend for my nephew’s First Moon.”
“Already?” Jess asked. “How old is he?”
“Just turned fifteen.”
“No! I was in high school when he was born!”
“What’s a First Moon?” I asked.
“Uh…” Jess and Elena both looked at each other, at a loss.
Finally, Elena ventured, “It’s sort of like a bar mitzvah.”
Jess nodded. “Yeah. Like the whole, coming-of-age, you’re-a-man-now thing.”
“Or a woman,” Elena added.
“Or you’re-a-woman-now,” Jess agreed. “It’s an old Teekkonlit Valley tradition.”
“Anyway—” Elena clapped her hands on the countertop, and I got the distinct sense she was purposely changing the subject. “I’m free the weekend after that.”
“Same. Snowmobiles?” Jess asked.
Elena nodded. “Dead Dog Pass?”
“Perfect.”
I looked askance at them both. “You want to take me to a place called Dead Dog Pass?”
“Don’t worry,” Elena assured me with a pat on the arm. “The dog died a long time ago.”
Time passed pleasantly in conversation with Elena and Jess. Wade Evers came in just as the kitchen officially opened for dinner.
“Gracie,” he greeted me, tugging on my ponytail as he passed by.
I’d noticed early on how touch-friendly the Teekkonlit locals were with each other. They were always sharing casual, platonic touches in passing and in greeting. As the weeks went by, some of the more familiar people had begun to extend those little touches to me. I appreciated them, enjoyed the glow of warmth they imparted. But I wasn’t yet brave enough to venture my own touches. I enjoyed the contact way too much, in a completely non-sexual way, and for me to initiate it felt somehow greedy.
For the first time, after dinner, I felt the impulse to stay in the dining room and socialize, rather than going to my room to sleep. Even so, it felt weird to stay. I’d established a routine, and people would notice if I deviated. I stood up and looked around the dining room, uncertain. Everyone else seemed to be settling into a familiar routine—Jess and Elena had plopped onto the loveseat in front of the TV in the lounge. Harry and Joann were still sitting at the counter, chatting with Max. Nobody even looked my way—they were used to me leaving. How awkward would it be to try and insert myself into their routines?
“You play cribbage, Gracie?” I looked to my left and saw Wade sitting at a table with Connor and Lucia. “We need a fourth to play teams.”
Wade had his own house in town, but he almost always ate breakfast and dinner at The Spruce. I couldn’t remember when or where I’d learned it, but I knew that his wife had died two years ago, and that he’d apparently nearly followed her in his grief. His children and grandchildren were enough to keep him anchored to this side of the veil, but loneliness kept him at work or at The Spruce until he needed to sleep. When I’d first arrived, I never would have guessed at the sorrow hiding behind his good-natured chatter. But now I could see it—a shadow in his eyes when he smiled, the faintest echo of something missing when he laughed.
“You’ll have to refresh me on the rules,” I said, settling in the seat next to him.
It was late when Wade decided to call it a night. I bid him goodnight and made my way upstairs. I dug into my coat pocket for my phone so I could plug it in, but my hand found only empty fabric. I reached into the other pocket. Then the chest pocket. Still no phone. I checked them all again before I accepted that I’d left it in my truck.
I needed my phone—it was my alarm clock. I huffed out an annoyed breath and pushed my feet back into my boots. I crept down the hallway as silently as possible. It was nearly eleven at night, and I didn’t want to wake anybody who’d managed to get to sleep at a more reasonable hour. The dining room was empty and silent when I reached it, the lights dim. I passed through to the rear door that led to the garage.
I dashed quickly through the cold and into the unheated garage. My phone was sitting on my passenger seat, and so cold that it refused to turn on. I tucked it into my coat to let my body heat bring it back to life. As I trudged up from the garage, I noticed movement at the far corner of the building. In the faint glow of the security light above the kitchen door, I saw—a wolf? I squinted, trying to make the image resolve into something else. But it did not. There was a big, iron-gray wolf pawing at the kitchen door like a pet dog who wanted to be let in. I froze in place, dumb as a rabbit, and stared.
To my horror, the kitchen door swung open. I tried to shout a warning, but my throat was as frozen as my legs. I watched in helpless horror as Natasha appeared in the doorway.
The wolf sank to its haunches in front of her, ears pricked, tail swishing. My
horror turned to astonishment as I watched Natasha throw her hands up in an annoyed gesture. She motioned the wolf into the kitchen. The massive animal trotted inside, and the door swung shut behind them.
A dog, I told myself. It must’ve been a dog. A giant, wolf-like dog.
A few seconds later, the door swung open again. Natasha held it as the wolf-dog trotted back out, a large cut of red meat clutched in its maw. Natasha made a shooing gesture at the animal, and it raced off, disappearing into the woods.
She watched it run, and when she turned back to go inside, she caught sight of me. She stood still for a moment, watching me watch her. Finally, she waved and closed the door.
Back inside The Spruce, I went straight to the dining room. Natasha emerged from the kitchen’s swinging door just as I reached the counter.
“Gracie,” she said pleasantly. “What are you doing up so late?”
“I forgot my phone in my truck,” I answered impatiently. “Was that a wolf?”
Natasha shrugged. “I am not a zoologist.”
“It looked like a wolf. It looked like you were giving raw meat to a wolf.” I remembered Margaret’s warning when I’d first arrived—wolves came into town fairly often. Well, maybe that was because a crazy woman was feeding them!
“Maybe it was a large dog.” Natasha shrugged.
It’s dangerous to feed wild animals. And illegal. And dangerous! I stared at Natasha, completely flummoxed.
Natasha regarded me blandly. “It’s getting late, Gracie. Aren’t you tired?”
Taking the hint, I stepped back from the counter, giving Natasha one last wary look. I climbed the steps to my room, still not totally sure of what I’d seen. When I reached the top landing, Caleb was coming down the hall towards me, wearing sweatpants and an unzipped parka with nothing underneath. His feet were shoved into unlaced boots.
“Where are you going at this time of night?” I asked, trying not to stare at his bare chest.
“Sorry Miss Rossi, do I need a hall pass to leave my room?” Caleb was bearing down on me, hogging the entire hallway. I was forced to flatten myself against the wall as he passed. The sudden sexual heat fizzled out of me, and I glared at his back as he bounded down the stairs. Did he take up the entire hallway on purpose? Did he do it to everyone else? What happened when he and Harlan passed in the hall? I doubted Harlan wilted against the wall like a shrinking violet. Annoyed, I resolved to take up my fair share of space the next time we passed each other. If he didn’t want to make room, then it was hardly my fault if he caught my elbow in his kidney.
Chapter Ten
The next morning at breakfast, Connor Ankkonisdoy dropped onto the seat next to me.
“Hey, Grace. How’d your first month in Alaska go?”
“Not too bad. Especially now that the days are getting longer.” In mid-February, the sun was up for nearly eight hours. It was a huge improvement over the measly three hours of daylight we were getting when I’d first arrived.
“Just wait,” Arthur told me. “By summer you’ll be wishing for a little more darkness.”
“So, you’re getting settled in?” Connor pressed.
I nodded and sipped at my coffee. “Yeah, I think so. I’ve got my reading lists taken care of, lesson plans mostly set—”
“So I guess that means you’ve got some free time now.”
Ah, shit. That familiar old panic started to squeeze me.
Connor leaned in. “If you wanted to see the northern lights maybe we could—” He suddenly cut himself off, wrinkling his nose. “You been seeing Caleb Kinoyit?”
I frowned. “Not intentionally. Why?”
“You smell like him.” Connor flinched as soon as the words left his mouth.
“I smell like him?” I repeated incredulously.
“Sorry, it’s, uh, an expression around here,” Connor said, looking panicked. “It means, uh…”
“It means there’s a rumor you’re together,” Arthur cut in. “And that’s the polite way of putting it,” he added.
So there was a rumor we were sleeping together? How? Did everyone assume our mutual antagonism was just a symptom of our raging sexual tension? That was a bit of a stretch, considering our hostility mostly manifested itself through complete avoidance of each other.
“I can assure you that’s not going on,” I said dryly. “Caleb would sooner cut off his—” I caught myself before the word “dick” popped out of my mouth “—hand than touch me with it.”
Arthur chuckled, but I got the sense it wasn’t inspired by my wit. It was the slightly gleeful chuckle of a man who knows something you don’t.
“What?” I glared at him, with no real heat behind it.
“Aw, sweetheart.” He got up, taking his coffee with him, giving my shoulder a squeeze. “Don’t think too hard on it.”
Easier said than done. As I drove to school, I replayed the conversation over and over in my head. What about Caleb’s behavior towards me would indicate that he was in any way interested? Yes, I was reluctantly attracted to him. But only to his face, and his body, and his smile, and how he looked when he was reading, and how competent and in-control he was as a pilot. But that was it. His personality needed more work than big muscles and intense eye contact and unexpected literary interests could make up for.
But if that was the case, why did I want to believe in Arthur’s knowing smile?
As I parked at the school, I pushed Caleb out of my mind and focused on the day’s plans. First things first, a writing workshop for my freshman where we hammered out the basic format for writing an essay. I got to my desk half an hour before students would start arriving. I pulled out the sheet on which I’d printed twenty ridiculous essay prompts and then opened my top drawer to grab my scissors. I needed to cut the prompts apart so I could put them in a bowl and have the students draw them at random.
But when I reached into my drawer, my fingers brushed against an unfamiliar shape. I pulled the drawer out further and peered into the back. Sitting just above my scissors was an old leather dog collar. I stared at it for a long time, unblinking. As if in a daze, I finally managed to reach out and pick it up. The tags tinkled against each other, and in the light, I could read them—one was an old rabies tag, but the other said FREYA.
I dropped the collar. It hit my desk with a jangle.
The last time I’d seen this collar, it’d been in the little wooden chest where I kept all my other sentimental things. The chest had been filled with the usual kinds of mementos—my favorite childhood stuffed animal (a fat yellow bunny named Sunny), an arrowhead I’d found in a farm field when I was nine, an old green glass coke bottle I’d somehow managed to reel in on one of the very few occasions when my dad had taken me fishing with him, a loose stone I’d stolen from a medieval castle wall during my semester in France, the friendship bracelet I’d worn throughout middle school that matched the ones my three best friends had also worn, the tassels from my high school and college graduations, my late grandmother’s wedding ring, and… the collar from my dog, Freya, who’d passed away when I was sixteen.
The chest had disappeared right after I broke up with Alex. He’d known it had existed. Had even asked to see inside it. I had no proof he’d stolen it, but it was the only rational explanation. Nobody else had been in my apartment between the time I last saw it and the time it went missing—not even my landlord or repair people.
I stared at the collar. There’s got to be a rational explanation. Probably…probably the last time I opened the chest, I took the collar out? And then accidentally put it in the cabinet where I kept my school supplies? And then somehow packed it away in Chicago without noticing, and then also unpacked it in Longtooth without noticing?
Could that happen? It had to. The only other explanation was that Alex was in Longtooth. But the only way to get into Longtooth in winter was by plane. And Caleb knew all the comings and goings of all the flights in and out of Longtooth. Even if he and I weren’t exactly best pals, it would’ve someho
w gotten back to me that another outsider had arrived in Longtooth.
That made sense.
“Grace.”
I jumped about a foot in the air and spun around, clutching my chest.
“Oh, honey, sorry.” Margaret stood in the doorway, looking concerned. “Is everything okay? You’re white as a sheet.”
“I’m fine. I just…nothing. I’m fine.” I picked up the collar and dropped it back in the drawer.
“Are you sure?”
“Yep.” I shut the drawer and put it out of my mind. “Something I can help you with?”
“Just some happy gossip for you. The book your Seven-and-Eights are reading? Oscar Nobody?”
I laughed. “Octavian Nothing.”
“That’s the one. Well, a few of the kids in your class have been talking with their cousins over in Eagle Ridge and apparently it’s become a big hit over there.” Margaret’s smile turned saturnine. “Tom Tremaine is annoyed with you.”
I’d never met Tom Tremaine, but I knew he was the English teacher in Eagle Ridge—the Teekkonlit Valley’s second-largest town, less than half the size of Longtooth. “Why would he be annoyed with me?” I asked, even though I could guess. It was the same reason the other English teachers were always annoyed with me in Chicago.
“Because his kids are on the verge of staging a mutiny. They want to know why they have to read ‘boring books’ when the Longtooth kids get to read ‘cool books.’”
I couldn’t help cackling. Odds were good that Tremaine’s students were reading “classics.” I appreciated those books and enjoyed many of them, but I was also well aware that those kinds of books turned a lot of kids off of reading entirely. “Tell Tom he can borrow my reading list any time.”
Margaret grinned at me. “I don’t think I want to ruffle Tom’s fur any harder.” She turned to leave, but at the door, she paused and looked back. “Good job, Gracie.”
Cold Hearted: An Alaskan Werewolf Romance Page 9