“Uh, Caleb. Wake up.”
His lips parted and his teeth pressed against the tender skin where my shoulder met my neck. A low growl rumbled in his throat as he sank his teeth into my skin.
“Caleb!” I swung my elbow into his gut.
“Oof!” Caleb jerked back. He seemed to wake up in an instant, jerking away from me so hard he rolled off the bunk. Unfortunately, we were still zipped into the same sleeping bag. I was dragged along with him, and we landed hard, cracking our heads together.
We both hissed in pain. The broad strength of Caleb’s body surged against mine as we fought to find the zipper.
“Goddamn it,” Caleb snarled. “Quit squirming against me!”
“Quit getting in my way!” I shot back, slapping his big hand away from where it was blocking my reach. I finally caught the zipper tab and gave it a yank. Freed, I clambered back onto the bunk, away from the urgent press of Caleb’s morning glory.
Caleb remained on the floor, tangled in the sleeping bag, rubbing at his temple. I pulled my parka on and zipped it up to my chin.
When we had the sleeping bag rolled up and my roadside emergency kit put back together, we pulled the cabin door open, only to find ourselves facing a five-foot-tall snowdrift barring the doorway. We both grabbed handfuls of snow and bit into it, quenching a nearly painful thirst and subduing growling stomachs.
We had to dig our way out of the cabin. We were both panting by the time we made it free. On the bright side, since I had no choice but to pee outside, all the deep snow gave a lot of privacy. I nearly screamed as I cleaned myself up with a handful of snow, and then joined Caleb where he was digging out the snowmobile.
The snowmobile started up without a problem, and I was once again wrapped around Caleb like a koala on a tree. We plowed through the dense snow, cresting and dipping, bobbing and weaving our way through the forest. The sky was clear and blue. The wind was gone. The ground and the trees were covered in a pristine blanket of snow. Everything about it was beautiful.
We emerged from the woods near my truck. I only knew where the road was because of my truck. And I only knew where my truck was because of the bright red scarf I’d tied to the antenna. The truck was covered in several feet of snow and buried in a drift up to the hood.
“You tied the scarf there?” Caleb asked. His tone was strange. So carefully polite. It was like talking to a stranger.
I found myself responding with the same contrived civility. “Yeah. I was hoping it would help somebody find me.”
“I couldn’t see it last night. But it was a good call. Anthony will be able to find your truck when he can get out here to tow it.”
“Glad it was a worthy sacrifice. I knitted that thing myself.”
Caleb looked over at it again, contemplating it for a second.
We dug away the snow around the driver’s door until we could finally swing it open. I was kneeling on the driver’s seat, reaching for my work bag when Caleb’s hands grabbed my hips and tossed me into the passenger seat.
“Hey!”
He jumped in behind me and pulled the door shut. “We’ve got a visitor,” he said, panting a little.
The only window clear of snow was the driver’s window. I leaned towards Caleb, peering out at the snow-covered trees on the other side of the road. Suddenly, a massive moose passed into view. It had crossed in front of the nose of the truck, making its way across the road. It was the biggest animal I’d ever seen in person, and it was close enough that I could look it in the eye.
“Oh my god,” I whispered. “Aren’t they insanely dangerous?”
“Yes.”
“Are we safe in the truck?”
“Probably. But don’t make any sudden movements, just in case.”
“Is that one female?”
“No, that’s a bull. Moose shed their antlers in the winter.”
“Then how do you know it’s a bull?”
Caleb hesitated. “Saw the family jewels,” he said.
I grinned and pressed my hand over my mouth. Caleb glanced at me, and a small smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. We sat in silence, watching the Moose as it meandered across the road and then disappeared into the woods.
“We’ll just sit for a couple minutes—let him put a little more distance between us.”
While we waited, I picked up my bag and started double-checking it again for my phone. I’d already searched every possible nook and cranny. I knew it wasn’t in there. But I couldn’t help trying again.
Instead of my phone, I found something even more surprising. A string bracelet, elaborately braided from pink, blue, and purple thread. In the middle, lettered beads had been worked into the braid, spelling out HAGS. I stared at it for a long time. Long enough that Caleb noticed I’d gone as still as a statue.
“What’s wrong?”
“This… this was stolen. It’s been missing since—” Since I broke up with Alex and my box of mementos had disappeared with him.
“What is it?”
“It’s a friendship bracelet.” I turned it over, examining the age-grimed threads. “I made it in middle school with my best friends.”
“Hags? You had good self-esteem, I see.”
“It’s our initials. Hannah, Alyssa, me, and Summer.” I hadn’t seen Hannah or Summer since high school, and I hadn’t seen Alyssa since college. They’d all gone to different parts of the country, began new lives, and we lost touch.
Caleb glanced from the bracelet to my rigid expression. “Are you alright?”
“I thought Alex stole this. I haven’t seen it since the last time I saw him. I don’t know how it got into my work bag. It makes no sense.” I was starting to doubt my sanity. I looked over at Caleb. “Have you brought anybody into Longtooth recently?”
“No outsiders since you.”
And the only way in was by plane. There was no way for him to be here. I thought of Freya’s collar, tucked in my desk drawer. Maybe Alex hadn’t stolen the mementos. Maybe he’d just scattered them around my apartment, and I’d somehow packed them up without noticing?
But why would he do that? None of it made any sense.
“There’s no way he’s here,” Caleb said, as if reading my thoughts. “Nobody gets in and out of Longtooth without me or Margaret knowing.”
I nodded stiffly and tucked the bracelet back into my bag. “I know. It’s just… weird. I keep getting these reminders of him.” They were supposed to be my memories. They were from times in my life when Alex didn’t even exist for me. And yet, somehow, he’d sullied them.
“Let’s get back to Longtooth,” Caleb said, cracking the driver’s door open cautiously.
The ride back was long. By the time we pulled up to The Spruce’s garage, my whole body ached from the effort of holding onto Caleb and shifting my balance with the snowmobile.
When I walked into the dining room, I was greeted by mostly good-natured jibes.
“She’s alive!” Wade put his hand to his heart, faking astonishment.
“Hey, Grace, didn’t Anthony tell you when he sold you the truck that you’re supposed to put gas in it?” Adam teased.
“She’s from Chicago. She’s used to electric cars,” Connor said. “Hey Grace, you know that’s a block-heater you’re plugging into, not a charger, right?”
I laughed dutifully at their banter and thanked my lucky stars that Harry Lance wasn’t there. I could just imagine what he’d have to say about it.
Mercifully, I ended up getting a two-day reprieve from Harry, but on Thursday, he was sitting in the dining room when I came down for breakfast. The only open seat at the counter was two down from him. I took a steadying breath and sat down. Almost instantly, his grizzled silver head leaned over the counter, dark eyes narrowing on me.
“Told you not to take Alaska for granted, didn’t I?” he said. “Winter up here isn’t a joke. Didn’t I say that? You run out of gas in Chicago, and it’s no problem. You run out of gas up here, you can die.”
&nbs
p; “Well, it depends where in Chicago you run out of gas,” I said, curling my hands into fists so that I didn’t flip him both birds.
“Won’t make that mistake again, will you?”
Natasha appeared with a coffee pot and a mug. “Gracie,” she said pleasantly. “Anthony called a few minutes ago and said you should swing by the shop before school if you can. There’s something wrong with your gas tank.”
The dining room fell silent. Harry’s smug face went blank.
With every ounce of self-control I possessed, I leaned over casually to look at Lucia. “Think we could leave a few minutes early?” I asked her.
“No problem.”
Clenching my jaw against the vindicated grin that wanted to spread across my face, I leaned back in and picked up my coffee mug.
Anthony’s shop was small and warm. When I got there, he had a truck up on the hoist, draining some kind of fluid into a pan. Max Freeman was there, leaning against a tool chest and chatting with Anthony. He greeted me with a subdued nod.
“Hey, Grace.” Anthony wiped his hands on a rag as he came around the vehicle. “The good news is it’s a quick fix—just have to wait for the replacement part to come in. There was a leak in your fuel line. It’s definitely why you broke down.” He pulled his phone out of his pocket. “I took some pictures of the damage.”
I looked at the pictures. “How did this happen? Did I run something over?”
Anthony scratched at his collar, looking a little uncomfortable. “To be honest, I think somebody did this to your truck on purpose.”
“What?” Lucia gasped. “Why?”
“You could have done it by running something over. But this cut—” he zoomed in on the picture “—is too precise. It was done with a knife.”
“Who would do this?” Lucia demanded, clutching my arm.
“That’s my question,” Anthony replied. “I told Max about it.”
Max was the closest thing Longtooth had to any sort of criminal investigator. There were no police in the Teekkonlit Valley, but Max was authorized in some sort of official capacity by the state. When the Valley needed law enforcement, Max was the liaison. But the Valley rarely wanted the state’s interference. The locals handled things in their own way, and Max was the one who facilitated it.
“Grace,” Max said, calm, but serious. “Can you think of anyone who might have done this?”
My mind went blank at the implication. Somebody in the Valley hated me enough to get me nearly killed in a blizzard.
“No—I mean… I don’t know what I could have done—”
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Max assured me quickly. “Sometimes people are just assholes. Can you think of any particular assholes who’ve been nursing a grudge against you? Someone who might think you did them wrong?”
“Oh my god,” Lucia said suddenly. “Isaac Murray. After he attacked you at the Moose—”
I stiffened, heart hammering.
Max nodded. “I thought about Isaac, but I don’t think he could have done it. The aunties sent him to work the fishery up in Daghukkoda after what he did. He hasn’t left the village since he arrived, according to Sue Taalona.”
“Sue would know,” Anthony said thoughtfully. “Nothing gets past her.”
I shoved my hands into my pockets so nobody would see them shake. “I just… I don’t know who would have done this.”
“Don’t be afraid,” Max said gently. “The whole Valley is looking out for you.”
“Except for whoever sabotaged my truck.”
Max’s expression turned stormy. “I’ll figure it out, Grace. We won’t let you be hurt, okay?”
I nodded. “Yeah. Of course. Thanks, Max.” I stepped back, pulling on Lucia’s arm. “We should probably get to school.”
“If you think of anything that might help, give me a call right away,” Max said.
“I can’t—I lost my phone. That’s why I couldn’t call for help on Monday. I’m waiting for a new one to get shipped in.”
“Your phone went missing right before your truck broke down?” Max asked sharply. “When exactly did you last see it?”
Cold leached into my bones as I realized why he was asking—whoever cut my fuel line might have stolen my phone to prevent me from calling for help. “I—I’m not sure. I thought I had it in the morning when I left for Eagle Ridge, but I’m so used to always having it with me, I might just be imagining that I did.”
Max was quiet, contemplative. “Alright,” he finally said. “If you think of anything you saw out of the ordinary, anybody who’s been acting strange, anything at all, have my mom get ahold of me.”
I was silent in Lucia’s passenger seat as we drove to school.
“It’s going to be alright, Grace,” she said gently.
Chapter Sixteen
Despite the looming threat of whoever had cut my fuel line, the next few days passed peacefully. A bunch of people apologized for jabbing at me about running out of gas. Harry didn’t exactly apologize, but he did go on a tirade about not being able to trust anybody these days, which I considered about as good as I was going to get from him. On. Tuesday, Wade handed over a package—my new phone. On Wednesday, Anthony called to let me know my truck was ready.
I was never wholly satisfied with life. That unhappy otherness still stained every friendship, but I was trying not to let it take up too much space in my mind. I spent my days in class, my nights in The Spruce’s dining room, grading assignments, preparing lesson plans, or reading for my own pleasure. Jess and Elena joined me most nights. On Tuesday and Wednesday, Caleb wasn’t at breakfast or dinner. Not that I was looking for him. Elena told me weather had kept him grounded in Anaktuvuk Pass. Not that I was asking about him.
Thursday afternoon, his truck was back in The Spruce’s garage. When I got to my door after school, I found a shopping bag hanging from the knob, stuffed full. I stared at it for a second. When that yielded no answers, I pulled one of the loops free and looked into it.
Knitting supplies filled the bag. There was a gorgeous set of steel needles in a black canvas case. There were nine different sizes, with interchangeable tips to turn regular needles into double-pointed or circular needles. There was a container of stitch markers. And then there were four skeins of a pure merino yarn in a gorgeous cobalt blue. Somebody had gotten me knitting supplies, and not just basic supplies, but really nice stuff. Whoever had gotten it either knew about knitting or had asked someone who did. I brushed one of the skeins against my cheek, thinking.
It hadn’t escaped me that the knitting supplies had shown up after Caleb returned from a supply run. But who was really behind this? The only person I’d talked extensively to about knitting was Jess. Had she asked him to do it? I tucked the lovely cobalt yarn back into the bag and brought the whole thing into my room. It had to have been Jess.
At dinner, I sat beside her at one of the small tables by the windows, and quietly thanked her. “You have to let me pay you back. Those needles had to be insanely expensive and the yarn would’ve cost at least fifty dollars in the lower-forty-eight. God knows what it’d go for in Alaska.”
Jess scrunched her face, clearly baffled. “No offense, Grace, but there’s no way I’d spend fifty dollars on yarn. It wasn’t from me.”
My stomach plunged. The was only one other likely culprit. “Shit.”
Jess’s expression transformed into one of glee. “It was Caleb! I told you he wants you!”
I shushed her, looking around the dining room. No Caleb.
After dinner, I went straight up to my room, gathered the knitting supplies back into the bag, and hung the bag on Caleb’s doorknob.
Friday morning, the bag was back on my doorknob. Clenching my jaw, I pulled it off and hung it back on his door.
Friday afternoon, I got back from school and found it on my door again. Swearing under my breath, and smiling despite myself, I hung it back on his doorknob. After a second, I darted into my room and snagged a roll of tape. Wrapping
the tape around several times, I secured the bag to his doorknob.
When I came back up from dinner, I found the bag gone, but all of its contents were taped to the front of my door.
“Son of a bitch!” I choked out on a laugh.
As I pulled knitting needles and yarn skeins off my door, a door further down the hall opened up. Lucia poked her head out. “Grace? What are you doing?”
“Getting revenge. You have some time to help me?”
She came into the hall. “I’ve always got time for revenge.”
We sat on the floor in front of Caleb’s room, pulling knitting needles out of their case and sliding them beneath his door. We opened the package of stitch markers and pushed them under the door, one by one. We unraveled each skein of yarn, coiled them into flat loops, and slid them in after the needles and stitch markers.
“So what’s this all about?” Lucia asked as we worked the last skein of yarn beneath his door.
“I think he’s trying to make up for being an asshole, and I’m not having it.”
Lucia raised a single eyebrow. “By giving you knitting needles?”
“Hey, I like knitting,” I said defensively.
Lucia shrugged. “When a hot guy buys me gifts, I usually just say ‘Thanks, handsome. Why don’t you come inside and let me demonstrate my gratitude?’”
“It’s not like that. We actively dislike each other.”
Lucia grinned. “Even better.”
I got to my feet, then extended my hand and pulled her up. “Thanks for the help. I’d still be unraveling those skeins if it were just me.”
“No problem. This is the most fun I’ve had all week.”
I realized very suddenly that I was having fun too. A lot of fun. And not just with Lucia. The ongoing battle with Caleb made me smile every time I thought about it. I couldn’t wait for his response. “Uh, yeah,” I said unsteadily. “Longtooth can be pretty quiet.”
“Especially when you’re an outsider,” Lucia said.
Which reminded me. “Hey, I’m sure you heard about Caitlin’s episode. Do you have any idea what that was about?”
Cold Hearted: An Alaskan Werewolf Romance Page 14