by Joyce, T. S.
“Why?”
“Because, woman, I have a surprise for you. Just do it. No peeking.”
Elyse stifled a smile and squeezed her eyes closed. “Okay, they’re closed.”
The sound of his boot prints echoed over the old floors, louder and louder as he came closer. A zing of anticipation sent a tremble up her spine as he came so close she could feel his warmth. He radiated heat like her own personal sun encased in a man’s body.
“Listen, I’m not always going to say the right things,” he said on a breath as he slid his hand over hers. “I’m not good with words, and I’m not good with anticipating a woman’s needs. Not yet. I’ll ask you to be patient with me and to know I’ll never mean to hurt you, but sometimes I will, because I’m a bullheaded man with no experience making someone else happy.”
“Oh, Ian.” She squeezed her eyes more tightly closed and clutched onto his hand harder. “I’m sorry for making you feel like you’re always saying the wrong thing. You’re doing so well around here. Around me. I suspect we’ll both poke at each other’s nerves while we get to know our way around one another. And you don’t have to apologize about not being good with words. I can tell you don’t talk much. You’re a quiet man, and I like that about you. When you say something, I know you mean it, and that you’re only talking because it’s important to you. I’ll be more patient, okay? And Ian?”
“Yeah?”
“You do make me happy.”
Ian inhaled sharply, then let his breath out slow, as if he was releasing all his tension with it. Then he lifted her hand slowly to his cheek.
Elyse gasped at how smooth his skin was under her touch. Lifting her other hand, she felt her way around his clean-shaven face, imagining what he looked like without it being shielded by scruff. Ian held his palms pressed against the backs of her hands, as if he didn’t want her to stop touching him, and when she ran her thumbs under his eyes, she could tell they were closed from the way his lashes rested on his cheeks. With emotion filling her heart, she smiled and sighed in contentment. He’d shaved for her because he didn’t want to hurt her when they kissed. Big, burly, leather-tough mountain man, and he’d done the nicest thing any man had ever done for her. He’d thought of her comfort above his own.
She tilted her head back and stood on tiptoes, eyes still closed as she pressed her lips gently against his. There was no more scratch, no more tenderness, no more ache blooming on her skin. There was just this connection that she could fall into and get lost in. His mouth moved slowly against hers, as if he was savoring her and reveling in this moment. She was falling. Falling for her fiancé so hard it was scary. She didn’t want to hit the rocks below. She just wanted this dipping stomach feeling to last on and on.
Ian eased back and hugged her tight, lifting her feet off the ground. “I’m going to take you on a date, but not today. It don’t feel right after you being upset earlier, and I’ve been to Galena before. There’s nothing there that would be big enough for our first date. I’ll take you out tomorrow, okay?”
Elyse hugged his shoulders tight. “Will it be your first real date?”
Ian huffed a laugh. “First real one, yes.”
“Will you tell me what we’re doing for it?”
“No, I want it to be a surprise.”
“Can I see your face now?”
Ian hesitated. “Okay.” He laid a soft peck on her cheek and let his lips linger there, stalling.
Leaning back, she beheld his clean-shaven face for the first time, and it drew a gasp of aw from her lips. The lines of his face were sharp and strong and too beautiful to be hidden behind facial hair. His bright blue eyes were worried as he searched her face, but he didn’t need to be. He was the most handsome man she’d ever laid eyes on. His hair was cut short on the sides, and longer on top. Where it had looked shaggy before with his beard, he now looked devastatingly perfect. Like a model on the billboards in Anchorage.
“You don’t have to say anything,” he whispered as the corners of his lips turned up. “You say enough with your eyes.”
“You’re intimidating,” she admitted, unable to take her gaze from his face. Ian Silver was too handsome for her plainness.
Ian brushed his thumb across her cheek and cupped the back of her neck, massaging gently. He let off a shaky breath and murmured, “Not as intimidating as you. Tell me, Elyse, did you put on make-up for me?”
Her words stayed clogged in her thickening throat, so she nodded.
“Why?”
She swallowed hard and dropped her gaze to the off-white T-shirt that clung to his powerful torso. “Because I want to be pretty for you. I want you to like me the way I like you.”
Ian lifted her hand to his chest and pressed it there, right over his heart. It pounded as fast as hers was right now. “I do. Make-up or no, you have me.”
“I thought you were bad with words.”
Ian chuckled and led her to the door. He grabbed both of their jackets off the coat rack with one oversize hand, then closed the door behind them. And when they made their way over the yard to his truck, he surprised her utterly by pulling the door open like a gentleman. And as she buckled her seatbelt, he watched her with an unfathomable expression. One that made her draw up and smile shyly at him.
He said he could read her eyes, but he didn’t see how animated his own face became when he was around her. Earlier he’d said he liked her, but his eyes said more than that. Whatever was happening between them was bigger than like.
And as he strode around the front of his truck, she could see it in his smile. He made her happy, but she made him happy, too.
The inside of his truck was clean and smelled like old leather. Ian turned the key, and the engine roared to life. His radio only got one station, the one out of Galena, but the DJ was on a role with songs she remembered from high school. Every time Ian looked over at her with a smile that was now easier to see without his beard, she felt like she was flying. Window rolled down, she let her fingers catch the late-summer breeze as Ian turned onto the main dirt road that led to town. It was a forty-five minute drive, and he was quiet on the way, but it wasn’t an awkward silence. Ian was a man who didn’t waste words. He didn’t talk just to hear himself as Cole had done. And back in the cabin, he hadn’t charged in there after their spat and demanded she admit she was wrong. He’d gone into his room, thought about why she was disappointed, done something sweet by shaving for her, then compromised about taking her out. He was thoughtful in ways that surprised her, coming from a man who looked like him.
The mysteries around her fiancé stacked up, layer by layer, and because he hadn’t given her any real explanation as to what made him the way he was, her curiosity was growing cavernous. She’d met men with handsome, rugged looks like Ian when she’d been in Anchorage, but they’d all seemed the same. Arrogant, and they knew their place at the top of the food chain. And while there was no question Ian was a powerful man and knew his abilities to fix equipment and hunt, he didn’t have that air about him that said she was beneath him. On the contrary, he seemed determined to lift her up. He could’ve made her promises that he would provide the meat for their house if she took care of the garden and the canning. Instead, he was taking her into town to get her hunting and trapping licenses because the man seemed bound and determined to make her self-sufficient. It scared her because a secret part of her wanted to become dependent on him until she could find her strength again. She didn’t like how he’d talked about getting herself out of a bind in the winter. She wanted them to get out of any situations that arose together. But she understood he wasn’t trying to keep her reliant. He was trying to make her more capable, as she needed to be to make a life out here long-term. The idea of trapping during the winter season scared her, but it also excited her. Ian was taking over the lessons where Uncle Jim had left off. For that, her respect grew deeper and wider for the man sitting next to her.
Feeling brave, she scooted over as close to him on the bench seat as her
seatbelt would allow. He responded by draping his arm over her shoulders. She rested her head against his shoulder and smiled out the front window at the lush, green landscape. Summers in Alaska were beautiful, and she was sharing this one with Ian. Twenty-six, and she had the giddy fluttering in her stomach like a teenager with a crush.
“How old are you?” she asked. He looked younger now without his beard.
“Thirty.” He arched his eyebrows and cast her a quick glance as he pulled past the Welcome to Galena sign. “An old man compared to you.”
“Robbing the cradle,” she murmured, waving to Janet Graves who was watching the truck from in front of the radio station.
“I like ’em young and tender,” he teased as he pulled into a parking spot in front of the general store.
Elyse laughed and poked her bony arm. “I don’t know how tender I am, old man.”
“I’ll get you tender enough,” he said so softly, she had to strain to hear him. “Wait there, and I’ll get your door.”
Stunned, she murmured, “Okay,” through a baffled smile. For a backwoods man, he sure had a surprising amount of manners.
Galena was a small town, but that didn’t stop it from being a natural hub for the small villages around it. Settled right off the banks of the Yukon River, this was ground zero for boat deliveries for the outlying towns. Even with the small population, the town had a local police force, radio station, and hospital facility. It even had a feed store for all the homesteaders who called this territory home base.
Getting her licenses from the guy behind the counter at the general store only took twenty minutes, and while she waited, Ian stocked up on groceries. She was so ready to start filling the freezer. Meat was expensive, and she was feeling mighty guilty about the money he was spending on food. Ian didn’t seem to mind, though, and was cordial to the cashier as he checked out. Even when he paid the sixty-two bucks for her hunting-trapping-sports fishing license, and an extra five bucks for waterfowl stamps, he didn’t even bat an eye. He just told Mr. Neery he sure appreciated it and led her out of the store with his two armloads of groceries.
“Favorite store in town?” he asked as he loaded his wares into the back seat of his Ford.
“Easy. Feed store.”
“Why?”
“Because sometimes they have baby chickens in there, and they’re so little and cute and fluffy.” Her voice had gone all squeaky as she mushed her fists together in front of her face, so she cleared her throat and finished, “And there is, you know, horse feed in there.”
Ian let off a single, booming laugh and shut his door. “Well, we need some feed anyway, but I have a feeling you don’t think dusty bags of oats are as cute as baby things.”
Ian’s nostrils flared, and he gave a thoughtful frown at the feed store down the street. But before she could ask what was wrong, he hooked his arm over her shoulders like a proud rooster with a new hen, and damn, he dumped all those butterflies back into her middle. He led her slowly down the street, looking in each store window as they passed. He told her he’d only been here a couple times, a long time ago, and that the town had built up a lot since then.
“What were you doing in Galena?” she asked.
“Deliveries.” He didn’t explain beyond that, and anyway, she was taken with a wire cage set up in front of the feed shop. Dawna Summers was sitting behind it reading a newspaper, but inside were three little balls of fur.
“Puppies,” Elyse said on a breath as she picked up their pace double-time. “I just want to pet one. Just one, and then we can get what we need. I’ll just be thirty seconds. A minute, tops.”
Ian was chuckling that warm sound behind her. His voice was easy and relaxed when he said, “Woman, pet those dogs as long as you want. I like that you go mushy for animals.”
“I am not mushy,” she argued half-heartedly. Elyse turned her attention to the woman sitting behind the puppies. “Hi, Dawna.”
“Elyse!” The older woman stood and gave her a spine-cracking hug. “I haven’t seen you in town in forever. Heaven’s girl, you are skinny as a stick. Are you ill?”
“No, I’m fine. It was just a hard winter.”
“Well, land’s child, winter has been over for a while.” Dawna pushed her glasses farther up her nose and cast a quick glance over Elyse’s shoulder, then leaned forward and lowered her voice. “Do you need help? I don’t have much, but I can spare a couple of rabbits Robby snared.”
And this—this right here—was why Elyse loved this place. She’d been too proud to ask for help, but that didn’t mean people weren’t willing. Dawna and her husband, Robby, struggled too, but she hadn’t even thought twice about offering Elyse some of her hard trapped food. “No, Dawna, you keep your rabbits. I got me a husband now. Or a fiancé, rather.”
Dawna’s gray, bushy eyebrows nearly lifted to her hairline. “The advertisement landed you this strapping fellow behind you?”
The strapping man in question stepped forward and offered his hand for a shake. “Name’s Ian.”
Dawna shook his hand slowly, her eyes bulging round from behind her thick glasses. “You’re the new man of the Abram’s homestead?”
“I am,” he said in that rich tone of his. “I’ll get her healthy again.” There was steely promise in his voice that brought a grin to Elyse’s face. Oh, she believed a man who gave oaths with conviction like Ian did.
“Can I pet one of your puppies?”
“Oh, sure, hon. Business is so slow today. Serves me right for trying to sell them on a Tuesday. My Sheba had five of them, but lost two.”
“Oh, poor momma and poor babies,” Elyse crooned as she picked up a little gray and white one, cradling it on its back like an infant. The sleepy pup whined and wiggled, but eventually gave into Elyse’s affection and went limp in her arms.
“Malamute or husky?” Ian asked, picking up one by the scruff of the neck and lifting its lips to study its teeth.
“Husky. My husband and I breed sled dogs. Some of our pups have gone on to place in the top five in the Iditarod.”
Ian grunted thoughtfully and replaced the pup, only to pick the last one up and check its teeth, too. This one, the runt from what Elyse could tell, growled at Ian.
A low laugh came from deep within Ian’s chest, and if Elyse didn’t know any better, he sounded impressed. “Snuggle this one, woman, and see if you like him.”
“He won’t be any good for pulling a sled,” Dawna warned. “Too runty, and we had to hand-feed him when he wouldn’t eat. Weak composition. He’s a fighter, sure, but he won’t ever have the endurance for a team dog.”
Elyse put the gray, softly snoring pup down and took the little black and white ball of fluff from Ian. One of his eyes was blue, and one was a soft brown, and when she made kissy sounds, he barked a tiny ferocious sound. “Oh, he is a handsome little scrapper,” she crooned as the pup licked all over her face and wiggled his little curled tail.
Dawna grinned. “If you take that runt off my hands today, I’ll only charge you half for him.”
Elyse shook her head sadly and said, “Oh, we can’t buy—”
“How much?” Ian asked.
“A hundred-sixty bucks, and he’s yours. I’ll even throw in a bag of puppy food I brought with me.”
“Ian, that’s too much, and he’s another mouth to feed.”
“I’ll make sure you both have enough to eat. I think we should have a dog, especially in the winter when the wolves get bad.” The gritty way he said wolves blasted chills across her forearms.
“Wolves?” She frowned. She heard their howling plenty, sure, but they’d never approached the cabin.
A flash of emotion washed over Ian’s face like a wave, there and gone before she could decipher what it meant.
“You have tracks all over your land, and a good dog will come in handy in the cold months when the predators get hungry and too brave. A couple warning barks could save you from a bad situation.”
“You’re wanting a watch
dog then?” Dawna asked. “He’ll be a good one for you, especially if you aren’t wanting him to do sled training.”
Ian was already pulling his wallet out, and hope and guilt churned in Elyse’s chest. “I can’t ask you to buy me a dog,” she whispered, hugging the pup closer.
“Then we can call him my dog if you want.” Ian handed Dawna a stack of twenty dollar bills and smiled at the leather-skinned woman. “I thank you kindly for giving us a discount on him. We’ll give him a good home.”
Dawna pocketed the cash and beamed up at him. “I know you will. Elyse is good people.” Dawna offered her hand again and shook Ian’s firmly. “It’s been a treat meeting you. I like you a lot better than Elyse’s last fellow.”
“Ha!” Elyse pursed her lips. She definitely hadn’t meant to laugh like that. After clearing her throat delicately, she admitted, “I like him more, too.”
Ian ducked his head in a farewell to Dawna as he took the small bag of dogfood she offered, then he pulled open the feed store door for Elyse.
“Oooh,” she said, emotional as hell because the cutest puppy was in her arms, and he was hers. Well, hers and Ian’s, but secretly, she was going to baby it as her own.
Ian had frozen beside her and was watching her cuddle the little wiggling hellion. “What?” she asked, confused by the stunned look on his face.
“I just got this vision of you…” Ian shook his head and frowned. He let off a nervous-sounding laugh. “Nothing.”
There was a bench just inside the doorway, and she sat on it so she could better stare at her new puppy.
“Are you happy?” he asked in a soft voice from above her.
“Yeah,” she answered breathlessly. “Thank you. You’ve already done too much.”
“Not too much.”
“It feels like it. What can I possibly offer you? You’ve spent so much on me, and you’ve come out here at no benefit to yourself to help me out of the hole I dug myself into and—”
“Hey,” he murmured, sitting beside her. “You’re wrong. I have a stake in this, too.”