The Alaskan Catch

by Beth Carpenter

  Of course she’d be worried about something she was buying. “If the amount looks right, just put it in the basket for Ginny to handle next week.”

  “But what if someone else’s check arrives first and I lose my place in line? This is a handcrafted artisanal piece. He only makes so many.”

  Considering there was hardly room to walk in her mother’s bedroom now, Dana didn’t see the urgency to acquire another piece of furniture. But if she said so, Mom would explain why this piece was a bargain or one of a kind or some other reason she had to have it. By the time the piece was delivered, she would have forgotten all about it and moved on to her next acquisition.

  Her mother had never even learned to write a check until Dad died. Dana taught her how so she would be able to pay the bills, but she was beginning to think that had been a mistake. Mom seemed to delight in it, like a kid with a new toy. However, she wasn’t so eager for a lesson on balancing a checkbook. There was a good reason Dad had doled out Mom’s weekly spending allowance in cash; cash couldn’t be overdrawn.

  That’s why Dana hired someone to handle her mother’s bills and checkbook while she was out of town. She would only be gone a week or two, most likely. How much trouble could Mom get into in that amount of time? “If you think it’s important, go ahead. Just make a note for Ginny with the check number and amount.”

  “I’ll do that.” Mom’s voice relaxed. “What is it you’re doing again?”

  Dana repressed a sigh. “I told you, I was going on a trip to look for Chris.”

  “Oh, yes. Did you find him?” Honestly. She asked about the son she hadn’t seen in almost two decades with the same level of interest as asking about a misplaced sock. Dana would suspect senility except Mom wasn’t that old, and Dana could never remember her being any other way. Only things mattered to her, never people.

  “I did find him. In Anchorage.”

  “Anchorage, Alaska?” This time, some emotion sounded in her voice. It almost sounded like fear. “What are you doing in Alaska?”

  “I told you. Chris is here.” Dana stood and paced across the living room.

  “Did you talk to him?”

  “Briefly. He was on his way out.”

  “So he hasn’t agreed to accept the bequest?”

  “Not yet. I’ll talk to him again later.”

  “I don’t know why you had to go all that way. Isn’t that what we pay the lawyers for?”

  “I volunteered. Since I’m not working—”

  “Why did you quit, anyway? Doesn’t the business your father built mean anything to you?”

  It used to. Dana had worked her tail off in her father’s business, Reliable Equipment and Tool Rental, and due in no small part to her efforts, it thrived. She kept waiting for Dad to notice. But then he got sick and appointed his golf buddy as manager. Dana had tried to tell Dad she could handle it, but he said he didn’t want her to put in the extra hours in the office when he needed her at home taking care of him. And somehow, he’d never gotten around to updating the will. “I just couldn’t work under Jerry.”

  “You worked under him for two years after Wayne had his first heart attack.”

  “Yes, but that was when I thought—Never mind. It shouldn’t take too long to finish up my business here. I’ll be home before you know it. In the meantime, Ginny can take care of everything. You’ll be okay, won’t you?”

  “I suppose so.” Her mother hesitated. “Just be careful. Don’t they have wild animals or something up there?”

  Dana glanced out the window at the suburban neighborhood. A pair of birds soared in front of the green mountains rising behind it. She’d never seen a more peaceful vista in her life. Still, Mom had shown a smidge of concern for someone besides herself. That was progress. Dana smiled. “I’ll be careful. Bye, Mom.”

  Dana set her phone on the table. Some things never changed. Shopping was her mother’s overriding passion. Almost every day brought another shopping bag of stuff into the house. Once Dana was old enough, her after-school job was to find the items that still carried price tags and return them to the store so Mom would have enough cash to buy groceries and household supplies. Fortunately, Mom’s favorite department store was still downtown then, within walking distance of their house.

  Dana hated the walk of shame to the customer service window every other day, but the employees were understanding, all except one. When Mrs. Valens, the owner’s wife, happened to be working returns, she always threw out a catty comment guaranteed to turn Dana’s face crimson.

  But in spite of Dana’s efforts, the house overflowed with furniture, clothes, knickknacks and decorations. That was one of the reasons Dana loved her own little cottage, with a minimum amount of clutter despite all the gifts Mom tried to foist onto her. She’d lined up her favorite books in neat rows on the bookshelves, sorted kitchen utensils into bins in the drawers and corralled pens and pencils into pretty mugs. It was comfortable, and she could use some of that comfort right now.

  But what Dana needed was a plan of action. She wasn’t going home until she’d come to some sort of understanding with Chris. With her father gone, she was determined to bring Chris back into the family. He said she could stay in his house and use his car, so he must have a soft spot for her somewhere. She could just wait here until he came back. How long did fishing trips usually last, anyway? A day or two?

  In the meantime, she might as well settle in. She carried the cold mug of coffee to the kitchen, poured it down the sink and opened the refrigerator door. Mustard, ketchup and three bottles of beer. Definitely a bachelor’s place.

  She found a pad in a drawer and started a list. Milk, bread, eggs and a few more staples. And she’d get ingredients for chocolate chip cookies, Chris’s favorite. Homemade food always softened him up. After washing the mugs, she grabbed her purse and Chris’s key ring and stepped through the kitchen door into the garage.

  A gleaming red convertible greeted her, parked in the shadow of a pickup with a camper shell. Wow. Maybe Chris’s taste in cars had evolved. But how could he afford a house and three cars on a job that allowed him to start a fishing trip on a Tuesday afternoon? A few unwelcome possibilities flitted through her mind. Was “fishing” a euphemism for something else?

  Chris wouldn’t do anything...illegal. Would he? Not the Chris she knew. But then, she didn’t know him anymore. Still, if he were some sort of criminal, he would have jumped at the offer of ready cash. Right?

  She slid onto the soft leather seats of the car. A big step-up from her six-year-old compact. She rested her hand on the stick shift and smiled, remembering Chris’s patient, if ineffective, tutoring. With the press of a button, the garage door opened. After a little fumbling, trying to decipher the key system, she located a start button and the engine roared to life, then settled into a smooth purr. Cool.

  The car prowled up the street. Dana slowed to a crawl and inched over an unusually large speed bump. She didn’t want to take a chance on messing up Chris’s gorgeous car. She almost felt guilty for using it to run errands. It was designed for something much less mundane, like swooping around the curves of a scenic highway in a dramatic chase scene for a movie.

  She’d passed a grocery store in the taxi on the way, so she headed in that direction and found what she needed.

  After arriving home and putting away the groceries, Dana nibbled on a salad from the store deli. In spite of the daylight still gleaming through the windows, the clock on the microwave read nine thirty, which would make it well after midnight in Kansas, where she’d started the day. She yawned and found the sheets Chris had mentioned and then carried them into a spare bedroom. A large desk dominated one side of the room, with a single bed beside the thick curtain covering the window on the other side. She made the bed, changed into pajamas and opened the closet door to set her suitcase inside.

  A blue canv
as bag took up the floor space. She tried to push it with her foot but found it surprisingly heavy. Curious, she unzipped the top. It seemed to be filled with heavy ropes mostly, but also two helmets. She lifted one of the helmets and drew back. A red pistol sat atop the ropes. Dropping the helmet back inside, she zipped the bag closed. Her suitcase would be fine under the bed.

  She slipped between the sheets and closed her eyes. Maybe Chris would be back tomorrow. Maybe he would have changed his mind. Maybe everything would be okay. Maybe.

  * * *

  SAM YAWNED AS he dug American bills from the back of his wallet to pay for the taxi. The aggravations of travel on top of twenty-eight straight days of twelve-hour shifts always left him feeling like a bowl of mashed potatoes. He usually spent his first two days at home catching up on sleep.

  He hefted the huge duffel over his shoulder and climbed the steps to the front door. Even at three in the morning, enough predawn light leaked over the mountains to allow him to fit his key into the keyhole.

  He flicked on the lights, dumped his bag and wandered up to the kitchen. Might as well wind down with a beer before bed. He had to rearrange milk and eggs to reach the bottle. Odd. Chris’s truck was missing, so he’d assumed Chris would have cleaned out the fridge before going. He scavenged through a drawer, searching for the bottle opener.

  “Hold it right there.”

  Sam blinked. He knew he was tired, but was he hallucinating? A woman wearing flowery shorts and a pink tank top stood in his living room, near the hallway. She couldn’t have been more than five-two or -three, but the red gun in her hands more than made up for her petite size. Especially since the hands seemed to be shaking.

  He set the beer bottle on the counter. “Easy, there.”

  “Put your hands up.”

  He raised his hands, slowly. “Who are you?”

  “Never mind who I am. Who are you and what are you doing here?”

  “I’m Sam MacKettrick. This is my house.”

  “This is Chris’s house.”

  Sam nodded. “Yes, Chris lives here, too. You know Chris?” He spoke slowly and gently, as he would to a timid child.

  “Chris is my brother. He said I could stay here.”

  Sam raised his eyebrows. “I didn’t know Chris had a sister.”

  The gun wobbled. “Maybe you don’t know Chris at all. Maybe you’re making it all up. Maybe you’re here to rob the place.”

  “Calm down. That’s not a real gun, you know. It’s a flare gun.” Not that he found that reassuring. Flare guns weren’t particularly accurate, but if she managed to hit him with a flare, it wouldn’t be pretty. Even if she missed, she might burn the house down.

  Her gaze wavered, but then she raised her chin. “I suspect it could still do a lot of damage.”

  “No doubt, if you actually loaded a flare inside.” He guessed by the flicker in her eyes she hadn’t, but he wasn’t about to bet his life on it. After a quick scan of the room, he located the pile of envelopes in the corner of the island. “If you check the mail, I’m sure you’ll find some bills in my name at this address.”

  She glanced uneasily at the letters, then at him. “You back away and I’ll check.”

  “All right. I’m just going to get my wallet from my pocket so you can see my driver’s license, okay?”

  “Slowly.”

  Sam set the open wallet on the counter beside the mail and eased toward the front door to give himself a chance to escape, in case she wasn’t convinced. She crept to the island and looked over everything while keeping the pistol trained on him. Finally, her shoulders relaxed a fraction, and she set the gun on the island, her hand trembling. “Sorry. Chris didn’t tell me about you.”

  “So I gathered.” She didn’t look nearly as tough without the gun. In fact, she was kind of cute, with glossy brown hair, big dark eyes and a little pink mouth. “Now it’s my turn. Chris never mentioned a sister. How do I know you are who you say you are? For that matter, who are you?”

  “Dana.” She hesitated and then stepped forward to offer her hand as if they were in a business meeting. Her small hand was soft inside his.

  “Hello, Dana. So, prove to me you’re Chris’s sister. When is his birthday?”

  “February 15.”

  He cast around in his mind for another test. “First pet?”

  She frowned. “We never had any pets. Well, except Chris used to have a betta in a bowl in his room. He always wanted a dog, but Dad wouldn’t let him get one.”

  That checked out. Weird that Chris would mention his fish, but not his sister. But Sam was too tired to worry about that right now, and he had trouble seeing the girl in pink pajamas as much of a threat now that she was disarmed. He picked up the pistol to take with him, just in case. “Well, Dana, I’ve been traveling for three days and I’m wiped out. Make yourself at home. I’m going to bed.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  THE SMELL OF bacon lured Sam into consciousness and started his mouth watering. He yawned and checked the clock. Almost noon. He considered turning over and going back to sleep, but his hunger overruled his exhaustion.

  The red flare gun rested on his nightstand, reminding him not to go stumbling into the kitchen in his boxer shorts. A houseguest. Just what he needed after a particularly exhausting hitch. The least Chris could have done was text him a warning that there would be a strange woman in his house. Or maybe he had. Did Sam remember to turn his phone on after the flight?

  Sure enough, a message waited when he powered up the phone.

  Gone fishing. Girl staying at the house a few days. Should be gone before you’re home.

  Apparently, Chris had lost track of Sam’s work rotation schedule, which wasn’t unusual. Chris had enough trouble keeping track of his own.

  If it were anyone but his sister, Sam might suspect Chris was setting him up. He’d been needling Sam lately about the scarcity of women in his life. But what was the point of dating when Sam spent half his life out of the country? And assuming everything fell the way he wanted, he would eventually get promoted to a full-time posting overseas, in Dubai or Norway or the UK. A girlfriend would only get in the way of his career. Chris knew that as well as he did.

  In the meantime, Sam was a supervising drilling engineer on the Siberian project, with a big fat budget and big fat expectations. Not bad for the kid who used to wear thrift-store clothes and eat on the free lunch program.

  Early on, Sam had learned not to ask for things he saw in the store, for new snow boots or a football, because whenever he did, his mom would get angry and mutter under her breath about Raynott. For a long time, Sam thought Raynott was a curse word, but it turned out to be a name.

  He’d only seen it written once, one day when he got off the school bus and picked up the mail on the way to the apartment. The landlord was there at the mailboxes, growling something about reminding his mom the rent was late, again. Like she didn’t know that. They were always late. Chances were they’d be moving on soon, the way they always did when landlords started getting persistent.

  The envelope on top had the name Raynott in the corner with a return address from some other state. When his mom opened it, Sam got a glimpse of a check, and for a moment, he believed in miracles. But Mom swore and tore the check into confetti, yelling something about blood money. He knew better than to ask questions when she was in a mood, so he kept silent.

  But that was a long time ago and he’d come a long way. He’d burned the mortgage on this house last year and had substantial equity in a property on the Kenai Peninsula. His job paid well, and according to his boss, Ethan, the company had big plans for him. And it was summer in Alaska, with four weeks off to play. Of course, thanks to Chris, he had a houseguest to consider. He caught another whiff of something cooking and his stomach growled, convincing him it was time to face his unexp
ected visitor. But first, he needed a shower.

  Fifteen minutes later, his hair still damp, Sam stepped into the living room. Chris’s sister stood behind the island, stirring a pot. Apparently, she’d taken him at his word to make herself at home. What was her name again? Dana, that was it. Today, she’d pulled her hair back into a ponytail, making her brown eyes appear huge. She favored him with a sheepish smile. “Good morning.”

  “Morning.”

  “About last night—”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “I’m so embarrassed. I don’t know why Chris didn’t tell me you’d be coming home.”

  “My travel schedule isn’t always reliable. Chris doesn’t keep track of exactly when I’m due in.”

  “Well, anyway, I’m sorry. Believe me when I say I don’t usually go around waving guns. I found a great fish shop this morning, and I’m making seafood chowder and smoked salmon BLTs for lunch. Are you hungry?”

  “Starving. But you didn’t have to cook for me.”

  “I like cooking. Coffee’s made if you want some.”

  Sure enough, fresh brew dripped into the pot of the coffee maker. Sam filled a mug and took his first sip. She must have picked up a quality blend somewhere. Much better than that instant powder Chris used, and a whole different animal than the vile stuff that passed for coffee at the rig. Dana popped some bread into the toaster. Today she wore a denim skirt and pink T-shirt. Pink seemed to be a theme with her. He went to perch on a barstool on the far side of the island and watched Dana assemble sandwiches.

  She worked with an economy of motion, slicing tomatoes, zesting a lemon, patting lettuce leaves dry. Within a few minutes, she had two professional-looking sandwiches arranged on plates, each with a bowl of creamy chowder. She set one in front of him and handed him a spoon. “Enjoy.”

  Sam bit into the sandwich. It had never occurred to him to pair salmon and bacon, but the result was amazing. The lemon mayo was the perfect counterpoint to the smoky flavors. He nodded as he chewed. “This is good.” He took another enthusiastic bite.