by JoAnn Ross
Which she had. At the end of the cooking time, nothing less than a masterpiece had come from the oven.
The memory, like so many others of life with her parents, was bittersweet. She remembered the pleasure of her mother singing as she whisked the mixture with a skill Tori, who considered herself a pretty good home cook, had never been able to master.
She’d been allowed to taste the backup just-in-case version, and while the bottom and sides had crusted together to form an exquisitely thick cheese layer, the inside had been like eating a cloud.
Thinking back on Finn’s question about the afterlife, Tori decided that if there was a heaven, her mother’s cheese soufflé would be the starter for every party.
Tori had bussed the dinner table that night and remembered Helen Covington offering not a single word of praise for what had, indeed, been culinary magic.
But her mind had wandered off track again. As it seemed to have been doing the past year. Ever since her reckless night with Finn.
Tori was not impulsive by nature. Her life, after her parents’ deaths, had been so unstable that, while she might not have chosen a practical, stable occupation like accounting or teaching, until that mess with her recording contract, she’d managed to take care of herself.
The luck of where she’d been born had helped a great deal. California was one of the better states for supporting fosters once they reached the age to leave the system. Some merely said, “Good-bye and good luck” once you hit eighteen. But she’d had counselors who helped with housing subsidies when she applied for early emancipation once she’d graduated high school a week after her seventeenth birthday.
Then others who’d helped her apply for a Pell Grant and cobble together scholarships. Using those, along with working as a line cook in a West Hollywood pub and tips from singing at various local events, she’d been able to earn an associate arts degree in music from Los Angeles City College.
She’d considered transferring to UCLA, but by the time her two years at LACC were coming to an end, she’d just wanted to get out and start getting on with real-life. That had been ten years ago, and although there’d been some very lean times, and her financial situation was admittedly in a mess right now, she had her music, her Taylor, and, as her parents always liked to say, her health.
This was not the end of the road. Merely a detour, and if there was one thing Tori had become accustomed to, it was all the various twists and turns life could take. For now, she’d enjoy the view of this dazzling, impossibly blue lake and the mountains that towered over Caribou, refill her creative well, write some new songs, then come up with a revised plan to get on with her life.
7
The cabin had two front doors with a few feet of space in between, which Finn told her kept mud and snow from being tracked into the house along with keeping the winter cold out and the inside heat from escaping.
She stopped so quickly in the doorway leading into the central, open space, that Finn nearly ran into her. Since the top of her head only came up to his shoulders, he had no trouble seeing past her to a scene that looked straight out of a Bridezillas episode. A show which, although Finn had always viewed it as yet another reason never to get married, one of the pilots on the O’Halloran had downloaded onto his computer. When asked why anyone would waste valuable rack time on so much over-the-top female drama, the guy, who’d recently gotten engaged, had claimed to be war-gaming his upcoming wedding.
“Oh, wow.” She stared up at the huge banner of honeycomb paper balls in varying shades of pink and white that hung over a white-draped table on which a bottle of pink champagne on ice and two flutes rimmed in gold sat.
Clear balloons filled with pastel and gold confetti were floating high above the room, all the way to the top of the cathedral ceiling. A tiered three-layer cake featuring a mountain scene airbrushed on the side in purple and blues and some kind of sugary trees and a marzipan bride and groom in hiking gear standing on top claimed the center of the table, while yet more confetti, along with gold and pink glitter, was scattered over the cloth.
Someone had written on a chalkboard standing next to the table, Old, New, Borrowed, and Blue. Tori and Carter have said, I DO!
Hell. As soon as he’d realized what happened, he should’ve known to call Barbara Ann, just in case she had something like this in mind. Just in case? How could she not? The woman might have lived in Caribou for most of her adult life, having come here as a teenage bride, but except for a mind for business he suspected could match any of those hedge fund guys making billions on Wall Street, Barbara Ann Carter was Southern to the bone. No way would she not pull out all the decorating stops for a honeymoon.
“I’m sorry. Like I said, the woman who manages the resort is from the South,” he said by way of explanation. “While most people around here tend to be pretty casual, when it comes to anything festive, Barbara Ann goes full steam ahead.”
“I played with a band for a short time in Savannah and attended a wedding shower for the female bass player.” Her gaze drifted up to the ceiling where the balloons had gathered. “This is actually low-key compared to that.”
There was a note in a gilt envelope on the table. Tori opened it and read the few lines out loud. “Welcome, Lovebirds! Wishing you the best, most romantic honeymoon ever, and if there’s anything you need, just dial the desk from the phone and we’ll send it right over…
“Meanwhile, in case you’d rather eat in, at least for your first few days (wink, wink), the fridge and pantry are stocked with basics, and I’ve put some of the café’s most popular meals in the freezer. We’re all so delighted you’ve come to visit us! Hugs and all best wishes, Barbara Ann Carter, resort manager and mayor of Caribou.” She slipped the note back into the envelope. “That’s very thoughtful. And sweet.”
“Like I said, she’s Southern.” To use one of Barbara Ann’s own expressions, the woman might be as sweet as pecan pie, but she was also a force of nature. Which, he figured, was how she’d managed to fit into a place which originally had to have seemed as alien to her as Mars.
“I can get rid of these decorations for you.”
Finn couldn’t remember ever seeing so much pink in one place. He might be risking estrogen poisoning without first putting on a hazmat suit, but the last thing Tori needed was a reminder of whatever had caused her to end up at her Alaskan honeymoon cabin without a groom.
“No.” She glanced down at the floor, where pink silk rose petals had been scattered in a trail formation. “It’s okay.” She dragged a hand down her face, which was beginning to show her fatigue. The blue smudges beneath her eyes were now at risk for having the airlines tag them as excess luggage. “I have a feeling those lead to the bedroom.”
“Yeah. They probably do.” Caribou’s mayor was a wonderful woman. No one ever entered the café or her mayor’s office without receiving a warm, welcoming hug. But subtlety wasn’t exactly her forte. “There’s probably a broom somewhere to sweep it up.”
Finn glanced around. Where did people keep brooms, anyway? When he wasn’t living on a carrier, where there was a place for everything and everything had its place, he tended toward hotel apartments that came with housekeeping. And the first thing he did when he’d landed in town nearly a month ago had been to hire a woman to come in once a week to clean the house he’d found also came with the airline as the official CEO residence.
As far as anyone but Mary Muldoon knew, he was renting it for the summer. Although he’d received a few comments about how he could afford the place at high tourist season, his story about having saved up some dough during all the years in the Navy seemed to have been accepted.
She held up a hand. “It’s okay. Really. I’ll get to it later. After I shower off the travel grime. And maybe take a nap.”
“Let me at least carry your bag into the master suite.”
Where she’d be staying alone. Knowing Carter, he suspected the guy had done something douchey to have her calling off the wedding. Then agai
n, Carter George Covington IV had never realized the value of anything or anyone, so he could have been stupid enough to let Tori Cassidy get away.
Hello, pot. This is kettle. Calling you black.
As they’d suspected, the damn petals led to a king-sized bed crafted from local logs that looked out the French doors leading to the secluded deck to the forest and Denali beyond. Unfortunately, the bed’s blue coverlet had been covered with yet more petals, and candles seemed to have been placed on every flat surface. Including, he could see as he glanced into the bathroom, around the edge of a Jacuzzi tub large enough to do laps in.
“Well, whoever designed this definitely wasn’t a minimalist,” she murmured, seeming a bit stunned.
“The tub’s probably for the winter crowd,” he said, holding back the information that his father had been the one to push the architect for what he’d dubbed rustic opulence. “I’m told a lot of Osprey’s winter flying is taking groups up on the mountain for skiing and snowboarding.”
“Wow.” She looked out the window, a long, long way up the mountain. “You’re going to be landing up there?”
“So they say.”
“Have you ever done that?”
“No. But the SEALs do extreme winter training in Washington’s Olympic Mountains. I’ve flown teams onto glaciers there, so it should be pretty much the same thing.”
She shook her head. “That’s just crazy.”
“Different strokes.”
She’d given him that head tilt again and was studying him as if seeing him for the first time. She wasn’t alone. Now that he thought about it, he couldn’t deny that it sounded not entirely sane. But hey, someone had to do it. And as far as he was concerned, although the other services would probably disagree, there weren’t any pilots better than the ones found in the Navy.
“You really don’t miss the Navy?”
“Nope.”
He missed the comradery, the sense of family the Navy had provided, more so, honestly, than he’d gotten from his own. But there was an old saying that there were old pilots and bold pilots, but there were no old, bold pilots. At twenty-seven he wasn’t even nearing old, but having escaped death twice had left Finn fearing that he was coming close to losing his edge.
Maybe, as Mary had suggested when he’d first shown up at Osprey’s offices, he hadn’t lost his edge at all but was merely growing up. Which was another thing he’d think about during those hours flying the blue and orange bags of mail and crates of supplies through the mountains and valleys.
“I’d miss singing,” she volunteered after he’d placed her bag on the wooden luggage rack by the closet. “But fortunately, it doesn’t involve risking my life.”
Deciding not to mention all the singers who’d died in plane crashes, Finn didn’t respond to that statement. “You all set?” he asked instead.
“Yes, thank you.” She was walking him back down the rose-petal trail when she paused at the table.
“You sure you don’t want me to at least take the cake?” he asked. The other pilots would scarf it down like a bear preparing for winter hibernation.
“It’s fine. Someone went to a lot of trouble to create it. I’d hate the word to get around town that I didn’t appreciate it.”
“I guess you might have appreciated it more if the situation had been different.”
Her laughter had lost its music. “Now that you put it that way, I’m going to take all this”—she waved her arms at the cake, the confetti, glitter, the floating balloons, and Pepto-Bismol puffy pink garland—“as a reward. For avoiding the worst mistake of my life.”
“Good plan.” It wasn’t entirely a full explanation about what had happened, but at least she didn’t seem on the verge of bursting into tears. Which was a relief. Finn would rather face down a horde of armed terrorists than a woman’s tears. “I’m told positivity is always a plus. Plus, it annoys enough people to be worth the effort.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” Her lips twitched in what appeared to be a true attempt at a smile, and a bit of the light returned to her eyes.
Because he wanted to stay, Finn reminded himself that he had a full schedule today. And, although he hadn’t asked for it, still wasn’t sure he wanted it, he did have an airline to run.
But that didn’t mean that, when he stood in the doorway, looking down at that exhausted but still lovely face, he didn’t feel something move inside him. And not just in the obvious parts that had responded to her from the beginning but in an unfamiliar place that had him rubbing his chest over his heart.
8
Not wanting to be too obvious, rather than go out on the front porch, Tori stood in front of the front room window, watching him head down the road to where he’d docked the floatplane. She was emotionally drained, exhausted, and she knew that once she got some sleep, she’d be back to being angry as hell, but right now, she allowed herself to watch his butt in those perfectly fitting jeans as he walked away.
It really was a great butt, she thought with a wistful sigh. Correction. Make that an excellent butt. And, as if they had a mind of their own, her palms suddenly remembered cupping those well-muscled glutes. Which, while perking up other parts of her body, had her feeling even more depressed.
You could have had him. Not forever. Maybe no more than another day. She vaguely remembered him mentioning something about going sailing. But her brain had been so sex-fogged, he might have merely been saying it was something he’d like to do. It could have had nothing to do with her.
Except…
For those hours they’d spent together, he’d proven totally focused on her. At least on her body, finding erogenous zones she hadn’t even realized she possessed, and then once discovered, he’d set them off. Again. And again. And again.
Damn. She so didn’t need this trip down memory lane.
Shaking her hands and shoulders, she took a deep breath, found her center and went back down the pink-petal hallway into the bathroom, and, skipping the hedonistic tub, opted for the walk-in shower.
Although all the candles and the petals were definitely overkill, and she wasn’t going to have any use for the warming eatable massage lotion, chocolate play crayons, or the—heaven help her—male erection enhancement gel, Tori did bless Barbara Ann Carter, wherever she was, for the fabulous collection of shampoo, body soap, and lotion.
Changing into a pair of pajamas she’d thrown into her bag after tossing out some overpriced, highly uncomfortable honeymoon lingerie, she pulled back the comforter and tumbled into bed.
And discovered that it was possible to be too exhausted to fall asleep.
She got out of bed and closed the blackout drapes, blocking both the sun and stimulating view. She lay back down, snuggled into the puffy down pillows, took a deep breath, held it, and slowly let it out. Just like the meditation she did every day before writing.
Breathe. Hold. Exhale.
Breathe. Hold. Exhale.
Repeat.
And still, her mind whirled, rerunning the events of the past twenty-four hours in high definition with an amplified theater sound system.
She thought of all the things she’d said when she’d confronted her lying, cheating, playboy fiancé. Which had her thinking of all the things she wished she’d said. Things she still wanted to say. Not wanting to show weakness, except for that slap, she’d stayed outwardly cool. Calm. While inside she’d been screeching like a banshee and throwing things at Carter George Covington IV’s head.
No, better yet, she’d had a fantasy flash of marching into the kitchen that his hired personal chef had stocked with more utensils than any Iron Chef probably owned, finding the biggest, sharpest, most badass carving knife, and Bobbitizing the son of a bitch. After which she’d throw his cheating penis and his balls into the sea outside the deck in hopes a hungry killer shark came swimming by.
That’s what she’d wanted to do. That’s how the drama that had kept running in an endless loop in her mind all during her trip up here to Al
aska should have ended.
Strangely, the voices had quieted in her head while she’d been flying with Finn. But only because they’d been replaced by other, equally stimulating memories.
Now, as she lay in the king-sized bed, which, thankfully, at least wasn’t clichéd honeymoon round, smelling like a woman who’d prepared to be well and expertly laid, she found both her engagement and her night with Finn playing in her mind.
Neither of them had ended well.
Just like everything else in her life.
Which, in turn, had her whirling, buzzing mind going back to Finn’s question about the afterlife. What if those people who believed in reincarnation were right? What if all her problems were karma for past sins? Given the events of the past few months, if that were true, she must have been a terrible person in some past life.
Not wanting to dwell on that idea, she closed her eyes tight and took another deep breath. Which only had her realizing that she might have made a mistake going so heavy on that vanilla and almond scented body lotion which had her suddenly craving sweets. And, as it happened, just down that rose-petal hall, there was a blue and white mountain of a cake that wasn’t going to eat itself.
* * *
Finn thought about her all day. Which wasn’t that big a surprise since he’d thought about her too much over the past months. Believing you were about to die had a guy, even one who’d never been all that introspective, thinking about regrets.
Not that Finn had all that many, at least ones he could have changed. It wasn’t as if life was like Quantum Leap, where he could jump back in time like Scott Bakula and stop that teenage kid who’d killed his mother from getting his driver’s license, which would have kept him from being on the same road she’d been that night she’d gone out for ice cream to bring back to the family.