Northern Fires

by Jennifer Labrecque

  “Sure.” He started walking again and she automatically matched her stride to his. “No problem.”

  Obviously he was taking it personally. She knew how to send him running as fast as possible from her. She didn’t bandy about her personal business, but her gut told her whatever she said to Sven would stay between them. Sven had a bit of a reputation as a pretty carefree, laid-back guy and she got the impression some people thought he was a bit of a lightweight, but she didn’t think that was the case at all. She suspected there was more to Sven Sorenson than people thought. Instinct told her he wouldn’t pass her business around Good Riddance.

  She drew a deep breath and plunged in without preamble. “Look, Sven, I’m an alcoholic.” He stopped abruptly. She halted walking but kept talking. “I’ve been married and divorced twice. My baggage would fill the cargo area of my plane and then some.”

  Surprise bordering on shock etched his features. “You’re an alkie?” He caught himself. “Damn. Sorry. I meant an alcoholic. But I’ve never even seen you drink.”

  “Because I’m a sober alkie,” she said dryly.

  A frown furrowed his forehead. “But you fly.”

  “Exactly.” God, this was uncomfortable. Going to a meeting or talking with her sponsor was one thing, but she hated discussing it with an “outsider.” “I don’t exactly advertise it because I am a pilot—” and there were so many misperceptions and prejudices out there “—but Merrilee and Bull know.” She’d only thought it fair that Merrilee know up front before she hired Juliette, and Bull had been part of the hiring process, as well. Merrilee had been gracious, understanding and willing to take a chance. Bull had simply nodded. Merrilee had hired Juliette, and the subject had never been mentioned again. Juliette felt certain the couple had never shared that information with anyone else. “I haven’t had a drink in over three years…one thousand one hundred thirty-nine days, to be precise.”

  They continued down the trail. “Congratulations, then,” he said. “I’m sorry I had the beer tonight—”

  She cut him off. “If it would’ve been a problem, I would’ve said so. It’s not.”

  That was one reason she kept the truth to herself. She didn’t want people tiptoeing around her, treating her as if she was fragile or some time bomb waiting to explode.

  She felt him peer at her. “Is that why you don’t hang out at Gus’s? I’ve noticed you come in and eat sometimes, but you never hang out, and I’ve never seen you at karaoke night.”

  She smiled. “There are definitely better places for a sober drunk to hang out than a bar. But I don’t particularly like crowds, and I can’t carry a tune in a bucket, so no, karaoke night isn’t my thing.”

  Sven chuckled and she realized things felt relaxed between them. “You can always count on a crowd at Gus’s.”

  It was a relief to have actually said it to him, and that he’d rolled with it. “Yes, you can.”

  He whistled beneath his breath. “Two husbands…and you’re how old?”

  Juliette was so startled she laughed. “Not shy or even polite, are you?”

  “Not particularly,” he said. She caught a flash of his white teeth in the burgeoning dark.

  She couldn’t even be offended when it was the same way she felt. Two ex-husbands before she’d even hit twenty-nine—that wasn’t such a great track record. “Obviously you never heard that you’re not supposed to ask women their age. I’m thirty-two. How old are you?”

  “Thirty.” She’d speculated somewhere between thirty and thirty-three. “Any kids?”

  Once again, his blunt questions surprised her. He wasn’t nearly as predictable as she’d thought he’d be. She laughed. “Do you see any kids?”

  He shrugged. “Just asking. Kids aren’t always with their parents.”

  She’d been ever so thankful that she’d had the good sense not to procreate in either of her disastrous marriages. The way things were going, it looked as if children weren’t in her future. The thought sometimes left an ache inside her, but most of the time she simply didn’t think about it. And that might’ve had something to do with her decision to send a gift to Jenna’s shower instead of showing up for the event.

  And what was good for the goose was good for the gander. “What about you? You have any kids?”

  “Not yet. I’m a pretty conventional guy—you know, a wife first, one day. So, you want to vent about your ex-husbands?”

  Once again, he startled her into amusement. “Thanks, but I’m good. They’re in the past.”

  “No, they’re not.”

  She walked past his cabin and the one next door to her truck. She crossed her arms over her chest. Shadows obscured his face. He was so big he should’ve seemed ominous in the dark, but she felt totally comfortable, although somewhat annoyed by his smug assertion. “Really? It appears to me they’re in the past.”

  “Then your perspective is skewed.”

  “Please, enlighten me.”

  “Oh, no, darlin’, I’d say you’ve very much brought them with you into the present, otherwise they wouldn’t be a problem, would they?” He paused and when she had nothing to say—because really there was nothing to say to that—he continued. “What were their names?”

  “Boyd and Derrick,” she answered automatically. He had a way of throwing out things—questions, comments, opinions—that rattled her composure. “Why? What difference does it make?”

  “I was just curious. So, did you change your last name after your last divorce? I know some women go back to their maiden name.”

  “No. I really didn’t see the point.” She’d been Juliette Kincaid for her first seventeen years and she hadn’t liked herself or her life very much in that time frame, so she’d had no interest in revisiting that name. They had so exhausted this topic. “Thanks for dinner, and it was a nice hike.” It had actually been a nice evening—and a helluva kiss—but she wasn’t about to add a thank-you for that last part.

  “I enjoyed your company. Very much. And the hike. And the kiss.”

  Leave it to Sven to include that kiss.

  He leaned in and her heart thumped in her chest like a wild animal in flight…or heat was more like it. She could feel his energy, his fire, and her own responded in kind. She knew she should turn away, she should take flight, but she simply stood there.

  He dropped a chaste kiss against her forehead and straightened. “Good night, Juliette Miller. Drive safe. I’ll see you tomorrow night.”

  He turned on his heel and walked away, melding into the night, his boots crunching against the gravel. She yanked open her door and climbed into the driver’s seat.

  The featherlight brush of his lips against her forehead packed as much impact, in its own way, as their earlier kiss. And his assertion he’d see her tomorrow night held more of a note of promise than an appointment.

  What had they started?

  * * *

  SVEN KILLED THE WATER and climbed out of the shower. He toweled dry, pulled on a pair of briefs and headed to his sketch pad. Ever since Juliette’s taillights had faded down the driveway, a restlessness had gripped him. The shower had helped, but it was as if his equilibrium was still off.

  The feel of her in his arms, the taste of her mouth, the seductive velvet of her tongue—he wanted those things again. He wanted her. And she was even more problematic than he’d anticipated. Two husbands? He had enough sense to know she’d told him that to scare him off. Damn straight, any man in his right mind would dodge that bullet. And he had yet to meet a woman who didn’t want to say what an asshole her last husband or boyfriend was. What the hell was wrong with her? Toss in that she couldn’t hold her booze and yeah—that particular combo of woman ought to screw up any guy’s wet dream. Which led him right back to his creed—women were best uncomplicated.

  So, why was he sitting here doodling, her shape taking form on vellum with a piece of charcoal?

  Across the room, his cell phone rang from where he’d left it on the counter. He crossed the ro
om and answered, surprised she’d waited this long to call.

  “You still up?” his mother asked without preamble. Whereas Sven was simply a night owl, Marge Sorenson was an insomniac. It had made for a lot of mother-son time when he was still living at home and they were the only two in the household still awake at 1:00 a.m. Now their late-night chats a couple of times a week were as much habit as anything.

  They covered the cursory small talk. He listened with half an ear as she relayed the antics of his pops babysitting Sven’s niece that afternoon. His mother loved dissecting the minutiae of a day. She would’ve been the perfect candidate for the endless updates posted on all the social media, except his mom didn’t dig computers. Sven couldn’t say he was big into them, either.

  “So, I heard Bull broke his arm and you’re working with the dinner theater production.”

  Sven had been in Good Riddance for the past ten months, but his folks were practically honorary citizens. They’d missed Chrismoose last year because their first, make that only, grandchild had just been born, but other than that they didn’t miss the weeklong, annual pre-Christmas festival in Good Riddance. Chrismoose had devotees far and wide in Alaska. Long before he’d picked up work in the small town, his folks had been coming during the holiday season. His mom and Merrilee had hit it off like a house afire. He was pretty sure that was one of the reasons he’d gotten the contract on Jenna’s spa, not that his work couldn’t stand on its own merit, but… Obviously Marge and Merrilee had conversed this evening.

  “I have.”

  “Oh, good. That should be fun. Maybe Pops and I should come up for the play.”

  “Sure. That’d be great.” The thought crossed his mind that his folks would like Juliette. Of course, short of someone being Attila the Hun, his folks pretty much liked everyone, which was probably why Sven and his brother were the same way. Never meet a stranger. Always look a person in the eye. Offer up a strong handshake. That was the Sorenson way.

  “I heard that…oh, I can’t remember her name…that pretty bush pilot was out at your place tonight.” Inquisitive speculation was evident in his mom’s voice.

  He wasn’t a bit surprised his mother had that information at her disposal. “She was.”

  “What’s her name again?”

  His mom never forgot a face, but she was terrible with names. “Juliette. Juliette Miller.”

  “I see.”

  Huh? She sounded as if she’d just uncovered a state secret. “You see what?”

  “I see you’re interested in her.”

  He glanced at the charcoal sketch of Juliette and walked over to the fridge. “And what would lead you to that conclusion?”

  “You’re my chatty child.” He was a thirty-year-old man, but he didn’t bother to correct the child bit. He snagged the milk jug and drank, not bothering with a glass. “But you haven’t said a word about her. And it was the way you said her name.”

  “She’s…different.” He leaned against the counter.

  “Yeah?” He heard the rustling on the other end of the line and knew his mom was settling on the sofa. “Tell me about her. How’s she different?”

  He rolled through Juliette’s standoffish demeanor and the fact that she was a bush pilot and drove one of the coolest trucks he’d ever seen. He left out that simply sitting near her put him in the grips of something he’d never felt before. He’d known lust, but never this…compulsion. And that wasn’t the kind of thing a guy would say to his mom.

  “Where’s she from?” Marge sounded intrigued. He knew the feeling.

  That was public knowledge. “Someplace in North Carolina. She lived in Anchorage while she got her pilot’s license. She was a flight attendant before that.”

  “Alaska’s a long way from North Carolina. What about her family?”

  Pops’s parents were fifty miles from Wasilla and Marge’s were half a block away from his folks’ place. “I don’t know.”

  “She ever been married?”

  He hesitated. It really wasn’t his business to tell and it was obviously something that wasn’t common knowledge or he’d have known before she told him tonight…and his mom would already have known even before him.

  Marge was a sharp one. “How many times?” Apparently his hesitation had spoken volumes.

  “Twice.” He waited. His mom wasn’t judgmental, but she held marriage forth as the most sacred of vows, which probably accounted for him being thirty and unwed. He’d never run across anyone he felt he wanted to wake up to for the rest of his life, and he’d been reared to believe that when you crossed the matrimonial threshold, that was what you were signing on for. For better or for worse. In sickness and in health. The whole spiel including till death do we part. A serious commitment that required a rock-solid foundation.

  “And that’s not common knowledge,” he added. He had to give his mom credit. She’d keep it to herself. Even though they were tight, Merrilee wouldn’t hear it from Marge.

  “Hmm. And what is it you’re not telling me?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You’ve always been a terrible liar. That’s why you’re such a lousy poker player.”

  “I’m not a lousy poker player.” Actually, he sucked at poker, but it was still fun.

  “Right. So, there’s something you’re not saying.”

  His mother didn’t miss much. “It’s not my place to tell the rest, Mom.”

  “Sven Sorenson, you know I won’t tell a soul if you ask me not to.”

  He did know that, but she would still know and it wasn’t his story to tell. “I know that, Mom, but you’ll meet her when you come and—”

  “Has she had one of those sex changes like Donna?” Donna, who ran Good Riddance’s small-engine repair business, used to be Don, back in the day.

  “No. Juliette’s not transgender.”

  “She was a prostitute?”

  Marge was tripping. “Not to my knowledge.”

  “Stripper? Not that I’m judging. A woman has to make a living.”

  He couldn’t imagine Juliette on a pole. “Mom.”

  “She did jail time?”

  “She couldn’t hold a pilot’s license if she was a felon.”

  Sven was torn. Marge wasn’t short on imagination. He’d been pushing her for years to write a book. His mother would keep filling in the blanks with wild speculation. The truth wasn’t nearly as out there as what she’d come up with.

  “She’s an alcoholic.”

  “Oh. Oh, dear.”

  He didn’t know what he expected, but it wasn’t that note of dismay. It kind of rubbed him the wrong way.

  “She hasn’t had a drink in over three years.”

  “Oh, honey. I can tell you find her interesting, but you need to just be friends.” Her tone said she’d pat him sympathetically on the head if he was standing in front of her. “You know there’d always be the chance she’d relapse and that would be hard to deal with. Worse yet, that disease is hereditary. That’s not something you’d want to wish on your kids.”

  His kids? Damn, he’d only had her out to dinner. His mom was putting the cart way before the horse. Nonetheless, resentment swelled inside him on Juliette’s behalf. He understood now why she kept to herself and kept her secret just that.

  5

  ABOUT TEN MINUTES OUT, Juliette radioed for clearance and Merrilee’s voice crackled back with an affirmative.

  “Almost there,” Juliette said to Logan Jeffries, her last “cargo” for the day. “I’m sure you’re ready to be home.”

  Logan, Jenna’s husband, spent one week of every month in Atlanta at his family business’s headquarters. The rest of the time, he telecommuted from Good Riddance.

  “Definitely. I’m ready to see my wife. Thank goodness the baby didn’t decide on an early arrival while his or her daddy was on the other side of the country.”

  “How much longer is it? When’s the baby due?” There’d been a shower a couple of months ago and she’d sent a gift, but she didn�
��t really keep up with stuff like that.

  “The middle of next month. That’s why this is the final trip for a while. I was a nervous wreck the entire time I was there.”

  It was extraordinary really—Logan had been fairly reserved, maybe a tad stuffy, when he’d shown up in Good Riddance last October. She supposed it was the town and his wife’s influence that he was far more open now. The Logan Jeffries of old would’ve never confided being nervous. Actually, he would’ve never confided about anything. He was a walking, talking poster child for the transforming power of love.

  They circled the small town and Juliette started to descend. “Are you enjoying the new house and adapting to the new business?” He and Jenna lived above the spa. Lots of proprietors in town lived adjacent to or above their business.

  Logan smiled. “I’m glad we got into the house and she got the business rolling in the new location before the baby came. Moving was a pain, but we love the place. Sven did a great job. I hear he’s working with you on the play now. Nice guy, huh?”

  “He seems very nice.”

  “The first time I met him was when he plopped down in Gus’s and told Jenna they needed to decide what they were going to do in the bedroom.” He chuckled. “I wasn’t quite sure what to think.”

  Juliette tamped down a moment of totally irrational jealousy. Sven was an inveterate flirt. But she could certainly see where Logan would’ve been nonplussed. “Were you worried?”

  “I’ll have to say for a minute I wondered. I just couldn’t imagine any man not being half in love with Jenna.” Juliette would second that. Jenna was gorgeous and outgoing and the kind of woman you’d love to hate, if she just wasn’t so darn sweet and bighearted. “And isn’t he what you women call a hunk?”

  It took Juliette a second to realize Logan was actually asking her; the question wasn’t merely rhetorical. “Um, yeah, I guess he is sort of a hunk.”

  That was like saying Mount Everest was a hill. She couldn’t imagine there was a woman alive whose pulse wouldn’t pound if they simply shared breathing space with Sven Sorenson.

  “I’m glad he wasn’t interested in Jenna because that would’ve been some stiff competition.”