Two Cabins, One Lake: An Alaskan Romance

by Shaye Marlow

  He was tall, with broad shoulders and an athletic, narrow waist perfectly complemented by jeans and a green T-shirt. He had black hair that ate the light, and a wide stance that said ‘I own this land’.

  My girly parts stood up and took notice. But every other part of me—and they definitely had the majority—really, really wanted to slap him.

  That Devil personified had to be the infamous Gary, and if that was the case, I may as well go drown myself in the tub now. I turned around before my lady bits got any more excited, and climbed back up to my cabin.

  I didn’t want a hot fucking neighbor. Or a fucking hot neighbor, or fucking a hot neighbor. I didn’t want it any which way. I didn’t want or need a distraction, particularly in the form of a man.

  What I wanted was a sweet old couple who called more than they visited, and were quiet as church mice when they did appear. What I needed was to write.

  It was already past my bedtime, and I had to get up early in the morning. Luckily, I had earplugs. I’d just sleep with them in. They couldn’t possibly keep this up more than a night or two.

  Clinging to that thought, I let my dog, Mocha, in for the night and brushed my teeth. I climbed up into the loft, flopped down onto the queen-sized mattress lying on my unfinished plywood floor, and drifted into a fitful sleep.

  I don’t know how long I slept before I was awoken by a boom heard even through my ear plugs. I shot upright, blinking in the darkness as a loud crackling was followed by another explosive boom.

  Were they shooting?

  Groggily, I dragged myself out of bed. I stumbled down the ladder and burst out onto the deck.

  This being the Land of the Midnight Sun, the sky was a dim blue even in the dead of night. Every light was on next door, rippling and reflecting across the surface of the dark water. Most of the drunken revelers were on the lawn looking up, while a couple hunkered down.

  There was a high-pitched whistle, and then kerblam! The firework exploded overhead, sending a shower of golden sparks over the lake.

  For a moment, just the barest moment as all those little golden lights reflected off the lake, I didn’t mind having been woken up. For that tiny, perfect sliver of time, as I watched all those little lights sparkle and begin to fall to earth, I didn’t even mind that I had a neighbor. As long as he brought sparkly things.

  Then the next one went off in the trees halfway between our two cabins.

  And a tiny flame licked to life.

  My whole chest clenched with sudden terror. Fires were a huge problem in Alaska in the summer. They caught in dry grasses and leaves and brush and ate hundreds of thousands of acres of forest every year. Lightning was the number one culprit, followed by campfires and fireworks. I’d loved the cool shadows of the old, gnarled trees around my cabin, so I had made a conscious decision not to cut a firebreak around it.

  And now, there was a flame in my side yard, growing into a small fire.

  “Fire!” I yelled across the lake. Shouts rang out across the water as I dashed back through my sliding door. I stomped into my shitkickers and hurtled the three steps to the ground. From my generator shack, I grabbed two shovels and a stack of five-gallon buckets. Then I vaulted down to the shore, and ran along it as fast as my legs would take me.

  Distantly I acknowledged my polar fleece pants weren’t the best to wear into this kind of work—synthetics tended to melt onto the skin. But at the moment, I was weighing my cabin against my hide… and my cabin was winning.

  A group of people met me along the lake shore, not far from the broken glass. Without a word, the green-shirted bastard took one of my shovels, and handed the buckets off to his friends. Then he was off through the woods, taking the slope up from the lake as though it were nothing. I was right on his heels, headed grimly toward the brightening glow, grateful for his help but absolutely determined that this would not be a bonding experience.

  Not no, but hell no, I thought, realizing the spot he’d set on fire was my blueberry patch. Now, to someone from the Lower 48, this might not sound like much. Someone from the Lower 48 might even be thinking, ‘what’s the big deal, just grow some more’. But that wasn’t an option.

  These were wild Alaskan blueberries, blueberries so wild and so Alaskan, some of them weren’t even technically blueberries. They were better, darker, more flavorful, and yet more elusive, defying every attempt to cultivate and farm them. They’d been growing in that spot when I bought the land, and over the years, I’d managed to encourage their growth. Every year my beloved blueberry patch grew just a bit larger, and every fall, I enjoyed rich, tart blueberry pies and muffins.

  And now? They were on fire. My neighbor had set my blueberries on fire.

  Thank God the fire was still relatively small—less than a dozen feet across. I ducked low to avoid the billowing smoke as I beat at the flaming forest floor with the flat of my shovel. I cringed with each delicate blueberry branch I stomped on, each blackened, charred stem that caught at my pants. My eyes teared up, and my throat grew tight, and I knew it was from more than just the smoke.

  One of the Devil’s minions splashed water on the fire ahead of me, and I jumped over the plume of steam to attack the other side. I continued slapping out the flames, vaguely seeing the shape of my nemesis beating and stomping on the other side of my blueberry patch. My lips curled into a snarl, and again, I was grateful—but at the same time, I wanted to kick his ass.

  Trying to steal my canoe? Littering on my beach? Small potatoes compared to burning down my blueberries.

  To keep from flinging myself across my dead bushes to show him the broad side of my shovel, I focused on my work. My arms ached, and I felt sweat running down my spine from the heat and terror and exercise. I coughed as another couple buckets of water sprayed out across the blackened patch.

  We were winning. I didn’t realize it, though, until a green shirt materialized directly ahead of me, breaking me out of my blueberry-bereft daze. He was hard to see in the smoke and the dark, but my stupid girl-senses seemed able to recognize him even when blinded by darkness and tears. Unwilling even to look at him, I veered aside to make sure the fire was entirely out.

  A few minutes later, after splashing a last couple buckets onto the charred and steaming ground myself, I stumbled back out of the woods.

  I’d been self-conscious earlier. Now, picture me in the same clothes, but covered with dirt and soot and reeking of smoke. My hair had come mostly down, and I’d singed a couple pretty good-sized hanks of it. I had a bucket in one hand, and a shovel in the other, and my eyes were full of crazy.

  My furious gaze found my neighbor. I threw the shovel down—the temptation to hit him with it was too great—and made a beeline for the bastard in the green shirt.

  “Gary?” I demanded.

  He turned toward me. He had thick black hair, rugged good looks, and a nose that looked like it’d been punched one too many times—but not nearly enough. The low light worshiped the strong planes of his face, particularly that stupid, pussy-liquefying dent in his chin. Damn him.

  “Yeah?” the Devil said.

  I slammed the bucket against his chest, making him stumble back a step. “What the fuck?”

  He grabbed the bucket, preventing me from repeating the move. “It was an accident,” he said.

  “It was carelessness and stupidity,” I spat. “I’ve been living here four years, and do you know how many times I’ve set the woods on fire?” I slapped the bucket from between us, making it bounce across the rocks with a satisfying clatter, and I stabbed my finger into his chest. Which was very firm, I was very irritated to notice. But nothing could stop me from my tirade. Not even his gorgeous green eyes, which I spent a moment too long noticing were very, very green. Beer bottle green.

  Deep breath. Back on track.

  “Zero. None. That fire could have spread and taken both our cabins. Hell, it would have probably killed me in my sleep if I hadn’t woken up when I did. I would have been burned alive.” I glared u
p at him, panting with wrath.

  “It’s the Fourth of July,” he said. “We had fireworks. That’s what normal people do,” he said, running a judging gaze from my wild, knotted hair down my stained, shapeless T-shirt to my ridiculous night pants and my scarred, muddy boots, “on the Fourth of July.”

  I bet he’d just be shocked if I showed him my granny panties. Not. Stupid man.

  “‘Normal people’ aren’t the most annoying bastards I’ve ever met,” I said. “‘Normal people’ don’t buzz a person’s cabin two dozen times in one day, or play music loud enough to be heard miles away in the middle of the fucking night, or let their drunk, stupid friends try to steal someone else’s canoe, and then leave broken glass all over the beach. I wonder—when you leave in a couple days, how many beer cans will I find on the bottom of the lake?”

  He hooked his thumbs in his belt loops and rocked back on his heels, looking way too unfazed by my yelling. “Actually,” he said, “I’ll be here all summer.” He said it with a lazy grin that made me want to slap him all over again. I could practically feel that dark stubble burning my palm. And why did that thought bring a stab of lust along with it?

  But pure, unadulterated horror quickly followed, and I groaned. All summer? I had a couple months of this to look forward to? I had a half-dozen more deadlines, which had seemed barely manageable with full-time fish guiding and then my brothers’ visit here in a couple weeks. But with a human noisemaker right next door, constantly interrupting my train of thought?

  Impossible. I started to hyperventilate.

  “Your name’s Helly, right?” he said. “The previous owners told me about you. I was wondering how someone got a name like Helly, but,” he looked me up and down, “I think I’ve figured it out.”

  Aaand, the fucker had just called me an angry hoyden.

  My anger was red-lining. I knew my limits. Another minute of this, and I’d either have a stroke, or I’d hurt somebody.

  I took the third option, and stomped back to my cabin.

  Chapt

  er Two

  My alarm went off two hours later. As I lay there, blinking into the bluish glow of predawn coming through the window, my desire to hurt somebody was strong as ever. Ah, who was I kidding? ‘Somebody’? I knew exactly who I wanted to hurt.

  My head ached, my eyes felt like they were being gouged with steak knives, and I wanted nothing more than to roll over and go back to sleep. But I couldn’t. I had a job.

  So I rolled the other direction, my feet met the cool floor, and I climbed out of bed. I managed not to die on my way down the ladder from my loft, and I lumbered into the bathroom with eyes only half-open and the rest of my vision obscured by hair.

  My bathroom was minimalist, the fixtures basic and functional. The décor consisted of mismatched Amazon purchases—a theme repeated in the rest of my humble abode—in bright, clashing colors.

  I didn’t bother turning on a light. My eyes, and my throbbing head, couldn’t handle the glare of a lightbulb at this juncture in time.

  I made the mistake of glancing at myself in the mirror before I climbed into the shower. I didn’t know why it always seemed to work this way, but seeing the misery on my face made it real. I had dark circles under my eyes, distinguishable even beneath the soot smears, and what looked like a semi-permanent crease carved between my brows. The whites of my eyes were reddened from smoke and tears, making my blue irises look almost green.

  I made a face at myself, and then showered and dressed in what I liked to call Fisherwoman Chic. I had the brand names that seemed to make my customers happy, the water-resistant synthetic materials with the newest vents and snaps and zippers. I honestly only wore them because my clients took me a little more seriously when I showed up and introduced myself as their fishing guide for the day. Men usually didn’t like taking advice from a woman, especially a young blonde, but if I tied my hair back in a severe braid and wore the uniform, it seemed to help.

  I had breakfast, fed the dog, packed a lunch, and poured a healthy dose of coffee in my biggest mug; this morning I wished it was gallon-sized, but I was already making plans to finagle a refill at the lodge. I let Mocha out as I stepped out the front door. From a rack on the side of my cabin, I gathered up a huge tackle box and two handfuls of rods strapped neatly together. These, I fastened to my four-wheeler.

  It was five in the morning at this point, and the sky was lightening toward dawn, though everything still had a dusky cast. All was silent and still; even the neighbor’s cabin, where tents had sprung up like pimples across the yard. A light fog hung over the lake, and droplets of dew wet the toes of my hip waders. I let the moment stretch out, enjoying what I considered the last moments of peace before my hectic day began.

  Then I fired up the four-wheeler.

  My commute consisted of driving almost a mile through a birch and spruce forest to the main river. I did this on a dirt trail that’d been carved by time and multiple passings of my tires. I motored along at a sedate speed, unwilling to tangle my lines or spill my coffee.

  Mocha ran ahead like she always did, sniffing out points of interest amongst the high-bush cranberry and devil’s club. She was a husky-mix mutt that moved like a ghost in the near-darkness, disappearing into the woods ahead of me just to streak up from behind moments later. She was a good bear dog, always letting me know with a bone-chilling growl when a threat was near.

  Bears and moose were always a possibility, especially since they were at their most active at dawn and dusk. For the most part, the large animals we shared the woods with would turn and run the other direction when they heard someone coming. But there were always the exceptions, the protective mamas, the surprise encounters. Bears and moose could kill people, mauling them or stomping them all to hell. It didn’t happen often, but it did happen, and I wasn’t willing for it to happen to me.

  So I carried a shotgun, loaded with slugs, wherever I went.

  This morning, I made it to the river, and my boat, without shooting anything. I kept my Sea Ark river boat pulled up to the beach in a slough, a slower tributary of the Kuskana River. This placement kept it from being hit and dragged downstream by passing logs or chunks of ice. As a bonus, it was a little harder to see by people passing on the main river, so my boat went mostly unmolested.

  The population of the river, the couple dozen year-round residents, were an honest lot that would never touch my boat. Hell, if it were only them present, I could probably leave my shotgun in the boat, and it would be there every morning till the end of time. But in the summer, the population of our little river ballooned with tourists and fishermen, and they, well… they were known to do stupid, often illegal things.

  I parked my four-wheeler next to the trailhead, and loaded in my tackle, rods, gas, and shotgun.

  Mocha sat on the shore as I pushed off and started my outboard jet. She watched, unperturbed, as I started to motor away. Sometimes she waited for me there, but usually she didn’t, instead choosing to roam and explore until she met me back at the cabin later that evening. She was an independent dog; she hung out with me when it pleased her, and she went where she wanted when it didn’t.

  I got my last glimpse of her as I rounded the corner into faster, siltier water. I turned right, nosing my boat upstream, and throttled the engine. The roar of the outboard filled my ears, shattering the relative quiet of the misty river. The damp and wind buffeted me as I skimmed along on step, but my layers of fancy clothes kept me warm and dry.

  The river was a product of melting glaciers high up in the surrounding mountains. Being glacial-fed, it was both silty—swirling with ultra-fine grey grit that made it opaque—and icy-cold, hovering around 40 degrees in the dead of summer.

  There were some stirrings at the dock when I pulled in. Other guides, all men, rustled around in the bobbing boats, gearing up for the day. I recognized them all—some veterans, and some college students out for their first or second season, making a little extra money during the summer—and w
aved my good mornings as I tied off my boat and trudged up to the main building, thermal coffee mug in hand.

  The fishing lodge was a big A-frame built with local timbers, already bustling with the morning rush. The smell of cinnamon and butter and bacon hit me as I let myself in the front door.

  It was with a sinking feeling that I greeted my clients for the day. Two men, both of them obviously laboring under the sexist women-can’t-fish delusion, eyed me dubiously. One of them even came right out and said it: “Our guide’s a woman?” Then he walked away, probably to talk with management.

  So yeah, if it seems sometimes like I have a chip on my shoulder, that might be why. That and, this morning at least, I was grumpy from lack of sleep and still mourning my blueberries.

  And I had three thousand words to write before 8 p.m. Which, shit, I’d forgotten about.

  It was established that yes, I would be guiding them, and yes, I’d been doing this for several years, and yes, I knew what I was doing. Glad somebody was capable of diplomacy this early in the morning, I sat back and watched the exchange between one of the owners, Nancy, and the chauvinist man.

  The situation deteriorated just a little bit more when I saw the two kids. They weren’t grotesque or misshapen or anything, they were just… Kids.

  I groaned. I hated guiding kids.

  It was the curse of having a vagina; my employers were forever giving me the women and children, thinking I’d know what to do with them. The other women, yeah, we got along fine as long as they were there to fish and not just to look pretty and keep their French manicures immaculate and go “eeewww!” at their first glimpse of slime.

  But kids? They broke shit, they fell in the water, they asked about a million questions, and couldn’t cast without tangling their lines every damn time. They were sometimes cute, and their excitement was infectious, but overall: They were a pain in my ass.

  My charges were still running around, taking their sweet time gathering up the last of their dusty equipment. Usually I’d be irritated by this, but today it gave me time to fill my insulated coffee mug, drain it, and then fill it again. I sat waiting for them almost an hour before we finally got out on the water.