Alaskan Dawn

by Edie Claire

  “Micah needs to move back home,” Haley said tiredly. “And I have to go.”

  “Are you still feeling okay? No problems?”

  “No problems.” Haley’s free hand went to her waistline. If there was nothing else she could do to help the situation back home, she could at least insulate the baby from it. Heaven only knew what stress hormones Fred would be tripping on now if she was hooked up to Micah’s bloodstream.

  “Goodbye, Mom.”

  “Goodbye, Haley,” Michelle said dejectedly.

  Haley sat still a moment. She rubbed her hand in circles around her abdomen, thinking. Stress really was bad for the baby. Brooding, holding in her emotions — none of it was good.

  She looked around outside the car. There was no one visible. The closest house was down the road and out of sight. She checked to make sure the windows were rolled up tight. Then she buried her face in her jacket and screamed.

  Three minutes later, she felt better. “Sorry about that, Fred,” she said as she drove back toward the cabins. “But it was necessary.”

  She pulled into the drive to see Ben lounging on his front porch, and her spirits rose instantly. She hadn’t spoken with him yet this morning, but since his Jetta hadn’t moved, she was hoping he had the morning off and would be able to spend it with her. A storm had moved in last night, and though the clouds appeared to be lifting now, a wicked wind persisted.

  She took the fact that he was dressed in jeans and hiking boots as a good sign.

  “So, what’s the verdict?” she called as she hopped out of the car.

  “I’m off all day,” he said evenly, hiding a smile behind his coffee cup. “They’re probably still going to run the late afternoon bay tour, but the boss has it covered.”

  Haley’s own smile was plain to see. “I’m glad to hear it.”

  Clearing the air last night had given her powerful peace of mind — a peace she sorely needed. She couldn’t wait to spend more time with Ben, to have him as a friend. Knowing that he wanted the same, or at least was willing to settle for it, melted her.

  “I hope you haven’t been waiting on me long,” she apologized. “I drove up the road to get a signal before we left. I didn’t want to subject you to any more of my cringe-worthy phone conversations.”

  Haley frowned as it occurred to her that she still hadn’t checked her work email. It had downloaded, but she’d gotten distracted before she could look at it. She really couldn’t turn her phone off for the day — again — without at least scanning it first.

  “Go ahead and do whatever you need to do,” Ben said mildly, making no move to move. He had brought his deck chair back to his own porch and was sitting comfortably with his feet up on the railing. “No rush.”

  Haley leaned against the hood of her car and began to scroll. Most of her work emails were meaningless; the rest she prioritized with a pitiless zeal, moving them into various folders she would not crack open until she was back in Newport Beach. But one particular subject line made her jaws clench.

  Conference call TODAY, Haley!

  The email was from Bob, of course.

  Stirjon Chemical’s got something going on. They want you. I told them 2:00 PDT for a conference. CONFIRM ASAP.

  Haley’s happy mojo evaporated. “No! Dammit!”

  “Everything okay?” Ben asked with concern, pulling his feet down. Was her angst really so obvious? Or had she sworn out loud?

  She had. Double dammit.

  “Just work stuff,” she mumbled, typing her reply. It wouldn’t send now, but it should when they got back out to the highway.

  Confirmed.

  “Must be a tough job,” Ben said tentatively. “You look like you lost your best friend.”

  Haley blinked up at him. Stirjon Chemicals was a client in Washington State. They were known for their innovative R&D in everything from textiles to biofuel. They were also known for improperly dumping toxic waste into a river upstream from Puget Sound, eliciting a nasty legal battle that had lasted over a decade. Theoretically they had cleaned up their act. Bob’s email suggested otherwise.

  Puget Sound. Where Ben grew up. Where he had learned to drive a boat. Where he had probably seen his very first orca.

  “Not yet,” she murmured miserably.

  “What’s that?” he asked, sounding even more concerned.

  Haley sighed and took a step toward him. “I’m afraid I have a conference call I can’t get out of. At one o’clock. Do we still have time for that hike?”

  Ben looked at his watch. “A shorter one, sure. We’ll skip the Harding Ice Field and just prowl around the base of the glacier a bit. No problem.”

  Hot tears sprang immediately to Haley’s eyes, and she turned quickly to hide them. How mortifying. Why on earth would she feel like crying now?

  Perhaps because she’d been fighting the impulse for too long and was now perilously overdue. The screaming had helped, but anger and frustration were only part of the perfect storm inside her. She had felt it building for weeks now, and it wasn’t going away. The leaping porpoises and snow-capped mountains had only been holding it off awhile.

  “Just give me five more minutes,” she called out as she walked toward her cabin. “What should I bring?”

  “Some decent shoes,” he advised. “And a water bottle. Lose the phone.”

  I wish, she thought silently.

  “The last part was personal opinion,” he added.

  Haley hastened into her cabin. She could not cry now. Maybe later, after the conference call. She should be sufficiently miserable then.

  She pulled out her running shoes. Thankfully, it didn’t look like rain, so the rest of the outfit she was already wearing, including the not-so-waterproof jacket, would do. Her newly purchased elastic-waisted jeans were hardly the height of fashion, but they were comfortable and should keep her out of actual maternity clothes for a while still. She frowned. She was not looking forward to the final chapter of this adventure. It would be awkward at work, to say the least. But she would put off thinking about that as long as she could. Right now, no one could tell she was pregnant. People who knew her well might remember her previously slender waist and not-so-bountiful chest, but she was no thicker in the middle than many non-pregnant women, and as long as she was careful about what she wore, she could probably hide the bump for at least another month.

  The only mirror in the cabin was high over the bathroom sink, so she couldn’t check her profile. But looking down, she was satisfied. The shirttails of her plaid button-down would hide the ugly waistband, even if she took her jacket off. She grabbed up her lightweight backpack, threw in a full water bottle, a couple more breakfast bars, and the damned phone, and headed back out.

  “My car or yours?” she asked cheerfully, seeing Ben leaning against the hood of his Jetta, an even lighter pack on his own back. He wore no jacket, but was dressed in layers again, the topmost being an insulated plaid button-down with long sleeves rolled up to his elbows. His ginger hair curled around the brim of a Seattle Mariners hat and a pair of sunglasses stuck out of his shirt pocket. He looked sexy as hell.

  Haley tried not to notice.

  He shrugged. “You can drive if you want. Doesn’t matter to me.”

  Haley smiled. It bugged her when men considered it beneath their dignity to let a woman drive. Many times she had insisted just to irritate them. But she didn’t want to drive today. She wanted to enjoy looking out the windows. “Let’s take your car,” she decided. “Remind me to reimburse you for the gas, though.”

  Ben shrugged again and opened the door of the Jetta. They were off.

  They drove toward Seward a bit, then turned off to wind down a pleasant road with woods on one side and a rippling river on the other. She purposefully asked questions to keep Ben talking, but as much as his clever commentary always amused her, she struggled to keep her mind off Stirjon Chemicals. What had the idiots done now? Their last atrocities had occurred long before she joined the firm — her involvement
had been limited to the final stages of remediation. But she knew the executives all too well. Their corporate culture was as toxic as their effluent, and if they had been cutting corners again—

  “What kind of law do you practice, Haley?”

  She looked over at Ben with surprise. He usually avoided the topic.

  He smiled sadly. “You’re thinking about work anyway. Might as well share. You can’t say I haven’t bored you enough with mine.”

  Haley shook her head. “You’ve never bored me. I’m sorry. I am distracted this morning.”

  “What kind of law do you practice?”

  To hell with it.

  “Environmental.”

  “Oh,” he said pleasantly. “Who do you work for? The EPA?”

  Her stomach ached. “No, Ben,” she said softly. “I work for the bad guys.”

  She could have said “corporate interests,” but she wasn’t in the mood to play word games. He would interpret her words the same regardless. Environmentalists always did. She watched his face. He gave nothing away overtly, but she could see a tiny muscle clenching in his jaw. “I see.”

  She fought back another urge to cry, this one almost overwhelming. The explosion she feared was clearly nearing. She forced her back to straighten and her chin to lift. She cleared her throat.

  “It’s not what you think,” she began, her voice not nearly as steady as she would like. “Most of the time, I’m working with clients to negotiate terms for remediation — figuring out how to clean things up in a way both parties can agree to. It’s not exciting stuff, but somebody has to do it.”

  He said nothing.

  “I didn’t set out to work in this particular area when I went to law school. I just sort of fell into it. But I do have a personal code of ethics where the environment is concerned, and so far, I’ve never had to violate it.”

  So far. If the worst was true with Stirjon, how much longer could she make that claim?

  “What I do on a daily basis is more tedious than anything,” she continued.

  He still said nothing.

  Haley swallowed. “So, do you want to pull over and beat me up, or what?”

  The corners of his mouth drew up slightly. “You’re too much, Haley.”

  She blew out a breath with relief. “I mean it. You can yell at me if you want to. It might make us both feel better.”

  “I doubt that.” He turned for a second to look at her. “I can’t say I’m not disappointed. It’s a shame your talents aren’t being put to use for something… Well, let’s just say for something else.”

  Haley had no response to that.

  “How much longer are you staying in Seward?” he asked.

  She perked an eyebrow at the non sequitur. Was he ready to get rid of her? “My flight leaves Saturday night. Why?”

  He shrugged. “Just wondering how long I’ve got. To turn you from the dark side.”

  The mischievous glint in his eyes nearly made her cry again. He didn’t hate her. It was going to be all right. She blinked back the telling moisture and smiled.

  “Good luck with that, Captain Parker.”

  A few minutes later, Ben parked the Jetta in the lot of the Exit Glacier Nature Center. “Come look around inside first,” he said, opening the door of the building for her. Haley slipped in and perused the exhibits. She was studying a map on the wall that showed how much smaller the glacier was now than it had been in various points in history when she heard a woman’s voice call out.

  “Ben!”

  “Hey, Carrie!”

  Haley looked over to see an attractive brunette in a ranger outfit enfold herself in Ben’s outstretched arms. “Haven’t seen you in a while!” the woman enthused over his shoulder. “Too windy for the boats today, huh?”

  Haley’s face felt warm.

  “You got it,” Ben answered, releasing her in no particular hurry. “How’s Andy?”

  Carrie withdrew her arms from around his neck, bringing the wedding band on her left hand into view. Haley’s face began to cool again.

  “He’s great. Too busy, though. You two going to make that camping trip happen this year?”

  “You bet!” Ben replied with enthusiasm. “As soon as the weather turns and my schedule eases up.” He looked for Haley. “Carrie,” he introduced, this is my new landlord Haley, visiting for the week. Haley, this is Carrie, one of the rangers here. Her husband and I are going moose hunting someday.”

  Carrie laughed. “Like either one of you would shoot anything. Hi, Haley,” she greeted warmly.

  Haley answered in kind.

  “You hiking up to the ice field?” Carrie asked.

  Ben shook his head. “No time. We’ll just go up to the edge. What have you been seeing, lately?”

  “Well, we’ve got a moose cow and calf hanging around,” Carrie answered, obviously knowing him well enough to interpret the vague question. “We’ve had some trouble with people getting too close to her, but so far she hasn’t charged anybody. And we’ve got a male black up around the ice field, but he’s no problem.”

  “Any wolves?” Ben asked.

  Carrie shook her head. “I saw some tracks back in the spring, but nothing since. Not near the trails anyway.” She turned to Haley with a wink. “Make him stay on the trails this time. He’s a trouble maker.”

  Haley felt mildly uncomfortable. Despite Ben’s introducing her as his landlord, Carrie clearly had other ideas.

  “Thanks for the intel,” Ben said, ushering Haley toward the side exit. “We’re off. Tell Andy I said hi.”

  “Will do.”

  They stepped out of the building and onto a wide, paved trail, where Haley, still puzzling over Carrie’s reaction, promptly stepped in a massive pile of animal droppings.

  “Lovely,” Haley said, scraping her shoe on the grass. “Who left that calling card?”

  “A moose,” Ben answered with amusement.

  Her eyes widened. “Right here?” she protested. They were standing barely six feet from the door.

  He grinned at her. “Well, I don’t think the rangers bussed it in.”

  “Are moose that tame?”

  “Tame, no,” he answered. “Bold, yes. Occasionally. But if it makes you feel any better, I’m sure this particular pile materialized before the building opened.”

  Haley continued walking down the paved trail. It seemed civilized enough. “That ‘male black’ Carrie mentioned,” she asked nervously. “We’re not going wherever he is, right?”

  Ben let out a good-natured sigh, then stopped and put his hands on her shoulders.

  Wow, that feels good.

  For a half-second Ben seemed off-kilter himself, but he recovered quickly. “You have got to get over this bear phobia of yours,” he lectured. “You can’t experience Alaska from the inside of a car. You’ve got to get out where the wild things are.”

  Haley tensed. “Are you trying to make me more nervous?”

  Ben released her with a chuckle, then started walking again. “Knowledge is power, my friend. So, here’s Bear Awareness 101: Safety Tips for the Environmental Attorney. Take notes. There will be a quiz later. You ready?”

  Haley laughed out loud, stepping up her pace to match his eager, long-legged stride.

  “Ready.”

  They headed off down the trail through the trees, soon leaving the paved path and stepping off onto a more narrow gravel one. Haley learned more than she could possibly process about black bears, brown bears, aggressive versus non-aggressive behavior, and how not to react if suddenly faced with a six-hundred-pound shaggy monster with claws.

  “So, wait,” she questioned, frustrated. “If the bear does attack you, are you or are you not supposed to play dead?”

  “It depends on whether the bear is acting defensively,” he answered.

  Haley groaned. “I am so going to fail this quiz.”

  “If it’s a brown bear you caught off guard or a female bear defending cubs, then playing dead shows you’re not a threat,
” he explained. “But if it’s attacking for any other reason — which is really, really unusual — then you’re better off fighting back.”

  Haley stopped in her tracks and glared at him. “Oh, I’m sure that would go just splendidly.”

  “You’re missing the point,” he protested. “If you learn what to do and how to respond appropriately, you’re more likely to get struck by lightning than you are to wind up in that situation. It’s a one-in-a-million thing. You have to put it in perspective.”

  Haley didn’t move.

  “Or,” he revised, cracking a grin. “You can make sure to always travel with a professional naturalist.”

  She grinned back at him. “I choose option B.”

  They started moving again. The trail had begun heading uphill, and the woods surrounding them grew denser. “Ben?” Haley asked a few moments later as she peered warily through the trees.

  “Yeah?”

  “You have bear spray, right?”

  “Sure.”

  She watched his tall, lean body climb up the trail in front of her. His pack barely looked big enough for a water bottle, and there was nothing attached to his waist. “Where?” she asked.

  “Back in the cabin.”

  Haley groaned again. “All right, fine. How about if I play dead and you fist-fight the bear? That way we can cover both situations.”

  He turned to look at her, his hazel eyes twinkling. “Deal.”

  They walked in silence a few moments more. The wind was whipping loudly overhead, but the woods absorbed much of the impact, and the temperature was pleasant. “Aren’t we supposed to keep making noise?” Haley asked, still mulling over her bear lesson.

  “Yes, we should,” Ben agreed. “This trail is usually so busy it doesn’t matter much, but I’m surprised how few people are out this morning.”

  “Tell me more about your sisters,” Haley suggested.

  He made a face. “Are you trying to upset me?”

  Haley laughed. Despite his protestations, his affection for his family was plain to see. “Who’s the oldest?” she prompted.