by Skye, Harper
“Yes, I’m starving,” Ailsa admitted, laughing at the look on his face.
“Well come sit down then.” Zach pointed to the table where his group of friends were making no effort not to stare. “Seb’s there with his wife, Leah, and there’s Tom and Sofia as well.” Zach’s hand was like an anchor as he led her through the bar towards the high top where his group of friends sat waiting.
Seb immediately stood up. “Hey there Summer!” He said warmly giving her a hug.
“This is Summer?!” The blond woman who had been sitting next to Zach exclaimed, her face breaking into a wide smile.
“Summer…?” Ailsa looked over to see Zach frowning at them.
“Cut it out guys. This is Ailsa. Ailsa, this is Leah, and Tom, and Sofia…” He said each person’s name in turn and Ailsa reached out to shake their hands. Zach had grabbed another stool, and Leah shifted to make room.
“Nice to meet you,” Ailsa smiled, climbing onto the stool.
“Can I get you something to eat?” Zach asked. “Jenn’s not going to come back to our table for awhile so I’ll go order at the bar.”
Ailsa pointed to something on the menu. She was so distracted she could scarcely read it. It didn’t matter. Food was food and she’d eat anything at this point.
“Beer?”
“Just water,” she replied. “I’m driving and I’m having enough trouble staying on the right side of the road.” Zach laughed and squeezed her hand before turning towards the bar.
“So…Summer, this is a very unexpected surprise!” Tom leaned into the table, smiling playfully at Ailsa.
“Cut it out T!” Ailsa heard Zach’s voice call back to him.
“What’s this Summer thing about?” Ailsa asked, looking over at Seb who was also grinning from ear to ear.
“That’s what we’ve been calling you,” Seb explained, shrugging good-naturedly.
“You all know about me?”
Leah smiled and laid a friendly hand across Ailsa’s. “We all know about you,” she said. “He’s been a complete grump ever since he came back from the lake house with Seb.”
“I have not…” The warmth of Zach’s body against her back signalled his return from the bar.
“You have too!” Sofia interjected laughing. They were having fun teasing him, and Zach was taking it well. “We barely convinced you to come out tonight!”
“I was tired!” Zach protested, sitting back down next to Ailsa and handing her a drink. “I’ve been hauling trees around all week!”
Ailsa tried not to smile as she wrapped her hand around the glass and took a long sip, trying to calm her nerves.
“Well good thing we insisted!” Sofia replied. Then turning back to Ailsa she explained, “So every time he was especially grumpy, we’d all know the reason…”
“Summer…” they all said together.
“That’s not…entirely true,” Zach replied, looking at Ailsa, a wry grin playing at the edges of his mouth.
“Well, Summer…Ailsa…thank god you’re here. Maybe we’ll get our old Zach back,” Tom added and lifted his glass in mock toast. Ailsa felt Zach wrap a heavy arm around her shoulders, and she found herself laughing along with them, raising her own glass to this most unexpected, coincidental, happenstance event.
Chapter 12
They all looked happy. This is what Ailsa noticed most as she sat listening to Tom, Sofia, Seb and Leah discuss the movie they’d all seen the previous weekend. She listened as they complained about how late the ‘break up’ of the Tanana River had been this year and discussed how muddy some of the local hiking trails still were. They ordered another round of beers, both couples debating who was going to drive and therefore abstain from another drink.
Eventually Tom and Sofia headed off home to relieve their babysitter who had been watching their two year old daughter. “Nice to meet you, Ailsa,” Sofia waved as she dragged Tom to his feet. Ailsa watched as they threaded their arms around each other’s waists as if they had done this a thousand times before, and she felt a sudden longing well up inside her for that kind of easy comfort.
“Are you going to take her to see your cabin?” Leah asked Zach. She turned to look at Ailsa and her brown eyes sparkled. “You won’t believe the place he built. Cabin doesn’t do it justice. And the woods his grandfather owned! No one gets land like that around here anymore.”
“You’d never survive out there Leah,” Seb shook his head at her. “It’s way too quiet for you.”
“I like my quiet,” Leah protested, and then shrugged. “Sometimes.”
“You like your busy coffeeshop too.”
“Yeah, I do love my coffeeshop,” she admitted. “I run a little place downtown. It’s real cute. Zach will bring you and I’ll make you my speciality.” Leah paused, narrowing her eyes for a minute at Ailsa. “You do drink coffee right? Not one of those British ‘tea only’ people?”
“No,” Ailsa laughed shaking her head. “I drink plenty of coffee.”
“Okay good. You can stick around then,” she nodded laughing at Zach and winking at Ailsa.
“Not sure about that,” Zach nudged at Ailsa’s side. “This one has quite a bit of wanderlust in her.”
She had been so good at this kind of banter back home. At her bar job she had kept up with the best of them, knocking witty comments off left and right as guys tried to get the best of her. But sitting at this table with Zach’s warm forearm brushing against hers it was all Ailsa could do to focus on the conversation. She loved the feeling of this group of friends, but she felt shy, an outsider to many of their inside jokes and she was glad when her food arrived and she had an excuse to simply listen.
Leah disappeared towards the ladies room and after a moment, Ailsa noticed Zach and Seb looking at each other. “I’m just gonna get another beer at the bar,” Seb said, obviously excusing himself from the table. “Anyone want anything else?” Ailsa and Zach both shook their heads, and Seb stood up and moved away from the table.
Suddenly they were alone, and the noise of the bar seemed a comfort, giving them some privacy for their conversation. “Did you have somewhere to stay tonight?” Zach asked, his voice trying to mask a hesitancy.
“Well, I drove past that hostel with the flags…” Ailsa began, trying to somehow regain her footing, find a way to explain that she hadn’t known he was going to be here. That she hadn’t known he lived anywhere near Fairbanks. That she hadn’t planned any of this.
“Billie’s.” Zach chuckled. “I’m not sure I can let you stay there!”
“How far is your cabin?” Ailsa asked. She tried to say it easily, as if she weren’t shy as hell to even be suggesting going back to his place. Why am I so nervous? She wondered to herself. I was never this nervous with him before.
“It’s not far…by our standards,” he added. “Twenty minutes or so from town. I’d love to show it to you,” he admitted. “And I have a second bedroom, you wouldn’t have to…I mean we…”
He’s as nervous as I am, Ailsa realized, and something in her felt immensely relieved at the realization that this tall, solid man could be so thrown by something as simple as her presence.
“He’s not having another,” Leah announced, returning to the table and picking up her coat. “I’ve called home-time.” She glanced at Zach. “You got a ride home?”
“Yeah I’ll drive him,” Ailsa nodded before Zach could reply.
“It was really nice to meet you,” Leah said, coming around the corner of the table and hugging Ailsa warmly. “I’m sure we’ll see you real soon. Bring her by The Raven,” she finished, hugging Zach.
“Bye Summertime.” Seb hugged Ailsa warmly and winked.
“Bye,” Ailsa laughed good-naturedly. It was nice to have found friends at what had seemed like the northern edge of the world.
“You ready to go too?” Zach asked, draining the last sip of amber beer from his glass. Ailsa stood and reached for her jacket. As they wove their way through the bar towards the door, Ailsa could
feel Zach’s gaze against her back. Her neck tingled with the energy of him, and it was a relief to step out into the cold breeze of the long Alaskan evening.
Ailsa led the way to her red truck, expecting Zach to laugh and make some joke about it, but he simply stood by the door as she got in, and then walked around to the passenger side. “What happened here?” He asked, looking at the seat where her broken bow lay like a sorry passenger.
“Oh I broke my bow yesterday!” Ailsa explained, lifting it carefully out of the way. “So stupid I just dropped it. That’s why…”
She caught herself mid-sentence, not sure what to say regarding her sudden appearance in Fairbanks.
“That’s why you’re in Fairbanks…” Zach finished for her, guessing what she had tried not to say. “Were you down in Denali then?” He said it easily, but Ailsa noticed he wasn’t meeting her eye.
“Zach, it’s not…” She didn’t know what to say. Ailsa looked at Zach’s face trying to read his expression. His light brown hair was slightly longer and she noticed waves beginning to appear in it. His jawline was still shadowed with stubble, but it had been trimmed short and didn’t have the wild look about it that had grown last summer while they were camping.
Zach looked over at her, but his expression was hard to read. “Ailsa, no one but you and I know what an insane coincidence it is that you’re here. They don’t know…Tom and Seb, I mean. They don’t know we didn’t exchange addresses. That you had no idea where I lived.”
“I was wondering why no one asked me,” Ailsa admitted. She started to put the key in the ignition, but then paused and looked at him. “It’s kind of unbelievable…”
“How did you find me?”
“Zach…” What was she going to say? If she told him the truth — that she hadn’t been looking for him — would it ruin this perfect moment? She was stumbling over her words, and she dropped her gaze away from his face trying to hide the truth she knew must be there in the corners of her eyes.
“Honestly, I don’t even care…” Zach’s voice was deep, and the tone of it resonated in her chest like a drum calling her home. He eased his face slowly towards hers, watching her reaction. And despite her nerves, Ailsa found her gaze being drawn into him until her blue eyes locked into his warm brown ones.
For a split second, she saw him smile, and then his mouth pressed into hers, more gently this time, asking her a single question. Do you still want me? Ailsa felt her mouth open to him. She felt her own tongue reach out to explore his mouth, the soft warmth of his lips, the scratchy edges of his beard. And her mouth answered back. Yes.
Chapter 13
The drive out of Fairbanks felt longer than twenty minutes. “Stay on the right. Stay on the right,” Ailsa found herself muttering as she had done in Anchorage where there had been more traffic than the lonely Parks Highway.”
Zach laughed, hearing her. “Good idea, Brit. Stay on the right.”
“Cut it out,” Ailsa pushed against his shoulder with her free hand. “And don’t touch me,” she added narrowing her eyes at him as he reached his arm towards her shoulders.
“Don’t touch you?”
“I mean it. You can’t touch me. It’s too distracting. I’ll crash this tank of a truck.”
Zach’s laughter echoed through the cab. “Well, it’s very reassuring that you find me so distracting,” he said, bringing his arm back in and rubbing a hand over his chin. “That way. Right here. Okay stay in this lane…” Each time he spoke his deep voice echoed in Ailsa’s chest, filling her body with the sound of him that she had missed for so long.
Once they were out of the main town and the road opened out, Ailsa tried to relax. It didn’t take long around here to get back into the wilderness, and all around them the forest rose up, whispering of mystery and of the bear that would not reveal its face to her.
Ailsa could feel the tension in the air between them. It tingled against her skin, and she could sense the force of Zach’s gaze against her neck, the side of her face, then lower as his eyes scanned her body. She shifted in her seat and gripped the steering wheel.
“There’s a dirt drive coming up on your right,” Zach said at last, breaking the silence that had grown up around them. Ailsa slowed the truck and turned into the trees, following the track as it wound past a wide meadow and then around a bend where the land opened out again. Slowly she pulled to a stop before a beautiful cabin. Its wooden exterior was a warm earthy brown and its pitched roof nestled under the open sky.
“You built that?!” Ailsa breathed, unable to hide her amazement.
“I did,” Zach nodded, reaching for the door handle and stepping easily from the tall truck. By the time Ailsa remembered herself and had reached to open her own door, she found Zach pulling her bags from the back of the truck.
“Come on, it’s cold out here,” Zach said matter-of-factly. His boots crunched against the cold ground as he walked towards the front door.
She waited for him to unlock the door, but he just reached for the handle and opened it, letting her step past him through the threshold. The warm air immediately enveloped her, cutting the bite of the cold wind, and Ailsa found herself in an open hallway. She kicked off her boots and followed it down to where it opened out into a large kitchen and living room. Behind her she heard Zach put down her bags.
“This is beautiful!” Ailsa said, turning on her toes to find Zach standing at the edge of the room watching her. “I can’t believe you built this yourself.”
“I had a bit of help,” Zach chuckled. “But yes, this is two years of my life right here. Turned out okay.”
“More than okay,” Ailsa agreed. She looked across the living room with its soft grey couches facing the open stone fireplace. When she looked back Zach was still standing there, hands in his pockets. Watching her.
“You going to come in?” She asked softly.
“Yes.” He smiled walking around the kitchen island. “Sorry, I think I’m nervous to have you here.”
“You’re nervous?” Ailsa looked at him in amazement, and Zach laughed.
“Yes I’m nervous. You’re very beautiful you know.”
He had put the kitchen island between them, and Ailsa walked around it until she stood under the warm overhead lights of the kitchen in front of him. She moved into him until there was almost no space between their bodies and tilted her head up to look him in the eye. Her light brown hair trickled down her back in waves almost down to her waist. “How beautiful?” She asked, her voice barely a whisper.
“Incredibly beautiful,” Zach whispered back. He swallowed as he looked down at her, and she felt him brush a strand of hair away from the side of her face.
Carefully she laid a hand against his chest, feeling the heat of him, the racing of his heart pounding against her palm.
“I can’t believe you’re really here,” Zach breathed against her face. She could feel the roughness of his face against her cheek.
“I’m really here,” she breathed back, closing the distance between them and pressing her mouth against his. She was hungry for him. It was a hunger that had grown ragged from the loneliness of the past year, from the confusion of her life and more immediately from the unbearable ride next to him in the truck. Ailsa felt her hand clutch the muscles of Zach’s arm as she let go of the tight rein she had held around her heart. Heat pooled inside her as her mouth pressed against his, and she could feel the desperation in him rise up to meet her.
The next moment her hands were at his waist, pulling at his shirt, running her hands over the skin and hair of his chest. She could feel the callouses of his hands across her skin as he lifted her shirt over her head. Her long hair brushed against her back as he lifted it away from her neck and moved his mouth against her.
“Fuck Ailsa,” she heard him whisper.
His arms were around her, strong and warm as if they had stood in the sun. His muscles tightened as he pulled her tight against him.
“I need you,” Ailsa heard herself whi
sper back, and she felt a knot grab her stomach as she heard the truth in her words.
He picked her up easily, his mouth crushing against hers. They were blind now, stumbling towards the bedroom. Ailsa wrapped her legs around his waist. She could feel the edge of his jeans pressing hard out against her. A minute later she felt the cushion of a bed meeting her back and she pulled at the button at Zach’s waist, waiting while he shook out of his pant legs and moved quickly back onto her.
“Do you…”
“I’ve got it…” Zach shifted away from her and she could hear him fumbling for protection.
Then his weight was back on her and she felt his hand cupping her breast, rubbing a thumb across her nipple, moving his hand down between her legs.
As soon as he touched her it was as if an electric current shot through her body, and Ailsa arched into him, a cry escaping her lips. She was alive. Fuck she was alive. Again he ran his wide finger against her clit, and she felt her body begin to break apart. She was turning into tiny pieces. Not Ailsa. Not a woman. Not a person. Just a thousand pieces of burning light.
She pulled at his waist and he paused to slip the condom on. Then he brought his mouth against hers again and she guided him between her legs, feeling him fill her, feeling him pause in the ecstasy of that first moment after he had entered her. And then they were moving together, breathing desperately, grasping at each other as they climbed into an intensity that was without thought, breaking at last into pieces of their former selves.
Chapter 14
Ailsa could hear Zach next to her on the bed. His breathing had slowed but he hadn’t said anything yet, and Ailsa could feel the vulnerability about the things they had just said and done creeping towards the edges of her mind. And then she felt the bed begin to shake softly, and the sound of Zach’s slow chuckle found its way through the shadows of the bedroom.