“Sorry,” Emily said, trying not to grin at his bashfulness, “but I’m Number 2. I mean, Emily, I’m Emily. Jones. Emily Jones, that is.”
“Oh!” he said, his face lighting up, “I’m Sam. Just Sam is fine, we don’t hold too much on ceremony here. I hope you got unloaded alright. Sorry, I was kind of occupied last night otherwise I would have waited and helped you. You found the place alright though?”
“Yeah,” she said, turning back toward the cabin, “it’s a beautiful place. I feel a little out of sorts, admittedly. It’s much different than San Francisco.”
“That’s right, the letter mentioned you were coming from the deep south.” Sam said, and suddenly seemed more at ease as he leaned against the doorframe. “I mean pretty much anywhere south of here is deep.”
“Letter?” She asked, and then remembered that her university had arranged for her to come here. They’d prepared everything in advance: her job, her travel expenses, even her accommodation.
Sam smiled back and sipped at his cup of coffee that had been sitting on a table next to the door. His dark brown hair was tousled to one side, a permanent fixture of bed-head that seemed to suit his happy-go-lucky demeanor. Even his eyes had a laid-back element to them, as if he had lived in a place without people long enough to be able to predict anything from them when he did meet them. It wasn’t wisdom, so much as a simple understanding. Emily suddenly felt exposed, as if the hard narrowed flint of his eyes were somehow piercing her, unpeeling her layer by layer.
“Well! I should… I should probably go, I was going to go look around town, check in at the hospital, and stuff.” She said quickly, panicked. If he looks too deeply at me I know what he’ll see, she thought.
“Wait!” Sam said, almost spilling his coffee as he held up his hand. “Listen, I’m free. I’d be happy to show you around. I mean, Fairbanks isn’t that big, but… wouldn’t hurt to have a guide, right? It’s the least I can do to welcome a new face.”
Emily bit her lip again and hesitated. Her small nose reddened as a gust of wind picked up off the river and slammed against them and she shivered. She looked again at Sam’s face and saw him smiling, the same one that Lily had worn the night before, like smiling was a genetic habit of the place.
“Alright,” she said slowly, “if it’s not too much trouble.”
“I’ll be right back!” Sam said, slamming the door.
Emily’s eyes froze in surprise and she shifted her weight from one foot to the other awkwardly. She couldn’t really understand why she’d said yes. Because he was handsome? That was hardly good enough a reason, and she balled her hand into a fist until she felt the nails digging into the skin of her palm. She had always been careful, especially when it came to men. Strong emotions could trigger the Bear, and she had learned long ago simply to avoid situations that might elicit those feelings.
Sam appeared moments later in a heavy wool jacket and motioned to the back of the cabin where he opened up the door of his truck for her, a big black rusty two-seater 4Runner with an open-back. She could smell the oil and machinery of old chainsaw parts, bled resin and sap from firewood.
“I call ‘im One-Eyed Pete,” Sam explained, starting up the truck and indicating that one of the headlights was busted, “so what do you want to see first?”
Emily mentioned that she was hungry so Sam revved into second gear and gave her a brief tour of the downtown drag, including the best places to buy groceries, a run-down movie theater that was playing old samurai movies from the 60’s, and a small shack down by the shore where she could get salmon filets for half-price. She was surprised at how well he knew the town, every nook and cranny, and he seemed to have a story for everything.
Eventually he pulled over and they entered a quaint looking café next to the big hotel, and Emily was surprised to make out Lily behind the counter, barking orders back and forth between two skinny high-school students in similar aprons.
“Hey, I know her,” Emily said, whispering to Sam.
“You met Lily? That’s great… she and her boyfriend are also renting one of the cabins. She’s a sweetheart, literally. I’ve never seen her get angry once. And believe me, I’ve tried.” He said, grinning at his own joke and scratching the bristle on his chin. “She’s actually half-Denali. Her father used to run a trap-line up the coast.”
When it was their turn, Lily’s eyes exploded with glee and she half-hugged Emily over the cash register while Sam ordered them two breakfast plates and paid for it with a twenty.
“I’ll pay you back,” Emily said after they’d sat down at the window where they could watch people passing by and Sam could keep an eye on his truck. “This is really good, by the way.”
“Don’t worry about it.” Sam said, cutting off a chunk of egg and fried salmon and forking it into his mouth. “Lily is the best damn cook I’ve ever known. Just you wait, if you stick around, you might be able to enjoy one of her potlatches.”
“Potlatch?” Emily asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Native pit-cook. You put all the food, like deer or game or vegetables, wrap it in cedar boughs, and throw it all in a pit full of hot stones. Then you cover it all up, and let it cook for hours. Seriously, the best damn food you’ve ever tasted.”
“Potlatch,” Emily repeated, trying out the word in her mouth, “I think the Peruvians had a similar sort of process. They’d superheat stones and throw in food, then cover it. It was a way of honoring Pachamama. Mother Earth, y’know.”
“No kidding,” Sam replied with genuine interest, “guess all ancient folk know best.”
Emily returned to her food and noticed that several of the men in the café behind Sam were eyeing the two of them from another booth. They were older, thin and gaunt jawed, all dressed in the same sort of dull plaid. One of them, a thin shaved crew cut of grey hair bristling like quills from the top of his head, kept his gaze leveled on her as he drank at his black coffee.
“Ignore them.” Sam said, without looking up.
“Hmm?”
“The blokes behind us,” Sam said casually.
“How did you know?”
He shrugged, forked another piece of egg into his mouth and chewed. “Sharp eyes, sharp ears. My father always said I had good feel for people. I could feel them glaring from a mile away. Pay no mind. Most folk, like Lily and the others, are cherubs … that’s most of us. Occasionally you get some grumpy old-timers.”
Emily swallowed and played with her food. It was another reason she had wanted to move to Alaska. Sure, she enjoyed the big city. It was always exciting, there was always something to do, but the amount of people and stimulus was sometimes overwhelming. Especially when she felt the Bear waking in her, and all her senses heightened. When that happened, being around millions of people was almost intolerable. Sam must have noticed her agitation because he reached toward her jokingly and dabbed the edge of her mouth with his napkin.
“So, what do you think of our little town so far? Be honest… I’ll know if you’re lying.”
Emily caught his mischievous wink and took a sip of her own coffee. “It’s nice… you have to realize, I’m from the big city. Most of my days were spent at home, reading, or occasionally going out, to parks and stuff, or events. San Francisco has an amazing art scene.”
“There’s parks here,” Sam said, “but I’m afraid no shopping centers.”
“I’m not really a shopper,” she snapped back.
“You’re not really what I expected, if I’m being honest.”
“And what were you expecting?”
“Well, I mean, we’ll have to work on your wardrobe.” he said, smiling, “but I always figured city-folk were a bit… y’know, stuck up and ditzy. You’re not.”
“You’ve been watching too much T.V.” She said.
“Actually, I don’t own one.” He said, stretching his cheeks in a faux grimace, “I know, total hick. Truth is, if I had a T.V. I’d probably become lazy and never leave it. I figure, better safe than sorry.�
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Emily grinned again. She still had her misgivings about life in a small Alaskan town but somehow the presence of people like Lily and Sam had given her hope. They finished their breakfast and as they were leaving, Lily called out and suggested they all get together later on for a beer, to which Sam made a cute salute with two fingers.
As they walked down the sidewalk, Emily closed her eyes and let the fresh sun bath across her tanned cheeks. The small dewdrop shape of her chin dimpled as she smiled in spite of herself. She realized how long it had been since she had really been able to smile without forcing herself to – the growing exasperation, the impending sense of claustrophobia she felt while finishing her studies in San Francisco had accumulated like a second skin, something restrictive and cloying. She knew it was still just the after-effects of her road trip, of reaching a new place with new people, the promise of a new job that was making her giddy. It still felt good. She opened her eyes and saw the distant flat rise of mountains to the north.
“How about you?” she asked. “What’s your story? You must have grown up here.”
“Why do you say that?”
“You seem to know everyone, and you know this place like the back of your hand.”
Sam turned over his hand and made another mock expression of surprise. “Well, you got me. I actually grew up a bit north, a place called Trapper Creek. I’ll take you there sometime. It’s a small place, cut-off. But as a boy, I couldn’t have imagined a better place.”
“Bush-kid,” she said.
“More or less,” he replied, “then, like most young kids around here, I joined the military. There’s a base south of town, you would’ve passed through it.”
She nodded, remembering several signs warning about trespassing.
“I did some stints overseas. It was the first time I’d actually gone anywhere. It’s weird, you never realize how big the world is until you’re far away from home and can count the kilometers and days it would take to get back.”
Sam paused and stuffed his hands in his pockets and Emily saw a muscle tighten in his jaw, like a piano wire pulled along the bone, a tension in the angle of his smile as he tried to shake it off and she let her eyes fall.
“If you don’t want to talk about it… I’m sorry, I didn’t mean-”
“It’s okay.” He said suddenly, and Emily brushed a lock of hair over her ear as the two of them passed by a used bookstore in silence. We all have secrets, she thought to herself, and she had kept hers so close to her heart for so long that she knew it was better to leave it alone. If people wanted to open up to you, they would – if not, trying to force yourself in would only push them farther away.
After a pause Sam continued. “Anyway, after I returned… I built a couple cabins, started renting to hunters that come up here for the open season. It’s not a lot of money, but it helps pay the bills. When I realized that hunting was big, I decided to buy a plane. Took me a long time to save up enough, but I bought a small Cessna. Now, I give shelter and tours to hunters that come up on their vacations.”
They both stopped at Sam’s car and Emily let out a whoo sound to indicate she was impressed by his life-story. “So you own two businesses?”
Sam scratched his head sheepishly. “Yeah. In my spare time I do lots of odd jobs, kind of a jack-of-all-trades, but master of none, if you know what I mean. Not like you… graduating top of your class. You’re probably the most educated person here.” He said as they both got into the 4Runner.
He pulled out and they drove down another section of road that was on the border of the town. When Emily had first entered Fairbanks, the dense foliage of fir and cedar and pine had seemed a bit suffocating, as if the forest were trying to consume her – but now, in the safety of Sam’s truck with him beside her, it didn’t seem quite so sinister. She leaned against the window and spotted a dark shape flying above them and pointed it out to Sam who squinted and quickly made the determination it was a bald eagle, probably a fledgling.
They made a large loop, and both fell into silence, but Emily could feel Sam occasionally looking over the passenger seat at her. Each time she tried to catch his glance he quickly brought it back to the steering wheel or the dashboard, his brow scrunched up as he made a concerted effort to look concerned over the mileage or gas intake. She made it a small game between them, pretending not to notice his sideways glances and luring him in, and then quickly turning her head as if she’d seen something out the front window.
Her impertinence finally struck her on the fourth or fifth time and she bit her lip again. What am I doing, she repeated. It was easy to get carried away. Sam was very handsome. There was a rugged structure to his face, something at once tough and uncompromising but at the same time filled with kindness, a strange benevolence that she had never known growing up in the city. Maybe it was just the way country-folk were. Being so far from civilization and other people, you had to look out for each other – maybe it was just something that rubbed off on you the more isolated you were.
Still, she had to be careful. She knew that shifters like herself, whether they were Wolves or Bears or forms she had only heard rumors of, were often the subject of prejudice. Even in a remote town like this, there was always danger. It was a cynical but predictable element of human nature, one she had learned to deal with a long time ago. I was taught well, she thought, suddenly thinking of her parents for the first time in years. The realization that it had, in fact, been years since she’d thought of them was even more of a blow, and she leaned against her hands again and turned her face away from Sam.
“You alright?” He asked suddenly, his voice several decibels quieter.
She took in a deep breath before she answered and turned, the fabric of her open collar crinkling as she moved. “Yeah, just… lost for a moment.”
“What’cha thinking?”
She hesitated. “My parents, actually. It’s funny. I haven’t thought about them in a long time. I think it’s this place. They would have liked this place. Sorry.” she apologized again.
“It’s okay.” Sam said, stepping on the brake at a yellow light, “I take it… your parents, I mean. You’re talking about them in the past tense.”
“They died when I was very young. I was raised by a family friend.” She explained, “I think the woman who took care of me probably didn’t want the job but felt obligated, y’know? She did well enough though, considering what a brat I was. But she didn’t want to be a mother, and I didn’t want to be a daughter. I learned to take care of myself.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, Emily.” He said. It was the first time she’d heard him use her name, and the intimacy of that utterance struck her as magical. She could feel her heart thump faster against her ribs.
“It’s alright, really! They had good lives while they were here.” She said.
“If you don’t mind me asking, what happened to them?”
“I’d rather not… talk about it, if that’s okay?”
Sam nodded. “No problem. I’m sorry. My parents passed away too. It’s a bit difficult to deal with, when it happens. Like an empty spot opens up that you’re not sure can ever be filled.” He said, his voice becoming more and more distant. Emily must have been staring at him because he blushed again and laughed weakly. “So! Why don’t you tell me what I’ve been dying to know since I saw you,” he said suddenly. “Why’d you decide to come all the way out here?”
The question was one she’d been asking herself for a while now, and she wasn’t quite sure how to answer it herself. She appreciated Sam’s patience as he continued to drive around, allowing her to formulate an answer.
“I think I’ve always known I was a bit different from my friends down in San Francisco. Don’t get me wrong, they have great lives, and I love them, but… I’ve always been on the fringes. Like I didn’t quite fit in, or something, no matter how hard I tried. Like they could smell something on me. I don’t know; this probably isn’t making any sense.”
“Kee
p going,” Sam urged.
“I’ve always known I wanted to help people. That’s why I studied so hard. But in the last year, as graduation was coming up, I just felt like I was heading for a roadblock or a wall. I needed to find a way off the tracks. Does that make sense?”
Sam nodded again, one hand on the steering wheel. The muscles in his forearm rippled with the effort, long strands of tendon pushing out against the pale flesh. “More than you know.” He replied earnestly.
“I don’t know why I’m telling you all this,” Emily said in an exasperated tone, “I just met you and I’m telling you things I haven’t told my friends before. It’s weird. I’m sorry for unloading.”
“You need to stop apologizing,” Sam said tenderly.
“I just felt like… Alaska might have people more like me. Somewhere,” she struggled for the correct word, “easier.”
Simply Bears: A Ten Book Paranormal Bear Shifter Romance Collection Page 2