“Maybe we should change the subject,” Alex said. “Do you like the chicken?”
“The chicken’s excellent.”
“You look grouchy.”
“I feel grouchy.” He stabbed a piece of raw broccoli from the salad. “What are you going to do when the weather drops and your car won’t start? Suppose you go into labor in the middle of a snowstorm?”
“I have it all thought out. I’ll get inseminated next month, then I’ll have the baby when the weather is nice.”
“You’re crazy, you know that? Suppose you get sperm from a lunatic?”
“I think they check on those things.”
“Yeah, sure. They say to the guy, ‘Are you crazy?’ And he says no, and then they hand him a little paper cup.”
Alex tipped her head back and laughed. “That’s not true. The entire procedure is very scientific and reliable.”
This was going even better than she’d expected. Casey looked totally frustrated. She decided to push it further.
“I thought since I’ve decided to live in Alaska, I’d try for a real Alaskan native donor.”
“Well, hell, why not go all the way and get musk-ox sperm? That’s even more Alaskan.”
Alex wrinkled her nose and put a large pot of water on the stove to heat. “If you help me with the dishes, I’ll give you dessert.”
Casey remembered the last time she gave him dessert and felt a stirring within. The taste of her still lingered in his mind, hot and achingly sweet. If he closed his eyes, he could feel her flesh under his hands, her belly quivering as he kissed her…. Damn. “No more dessert.”
Alex flashed him another of her innocent looks of surprise. “Don’t you like brownies?” she said, displaying a small white cardboard box of store-bought brownies.
“I guess a brownie would be okay,” he answered, reaching for one.
He was over the edge. It was that hands-off turtleneck she was wearing. And her perfume. It was the same scent that clung to his pillow, keeping him awake and aroused all night. Not tonight, he vowed. Tonight he was going to sleep like a baby. He was going to buy all new linens tomorrow. As soon as he had his brownie.
Alex gathered the dishes and plunged them into the sudsy water heating on the stove. She washed and rinsed a plate and handed it to Casey.
“This is nice, isn’t it? I’m glad we’re friends. It makes everything so much easier when all that sexual tension is removed from a relationship.”
“What makes you think the sexual tension is removed from our relationship?” he said, drying the plate with a dish towel.
Alex gave him another dish and threw him her best confused look. “I thought it was obvious. I mean, we tried being lovers, and it didn’t work. I assumed we were all ready to move on to bigger and better things.”
Casey stopped wiping and stared at her. A crooked smile settled on his mouth, and his eyes opened wide in disbelief at her audacity. “Bigger and better things?”
Alex burst out laughing. She hadn’t meant it as a double entendre. Michael Casey was a perfect measure on the yardstick of life.
“Bigger and better is just an expression.” Alex grinned. “It’s not meant to be taken literally.” She gave him a teasing sidelong glance. “Although, now that I think about it—”
Casey grabbed her by the scruff of her neck. “Are you about to insult me?”
Alex yelped and hit him on the head with the wet sponge. Soap suds clung to his hair and dotted his shirt. His eyes darkened, and he reached out for her. “You’re in trouble now.”
“Casey!”
He caught her wrists as she jumped away, walking her backward until she was pressed against the wall. “No one hits Michael Casey in the head with a wet sponge and lives.”
Alex felt her heart quicken. “Would another brownie help?”
“An apology would help.”
He was so close, she could feel his breath on her mouth. She shifted her weight, bringing her body into even closer contact. “Sorry I hit you in the head with the sponge,” she murmured.
His eyes were smoky, watching her mouth. “And the insult?”
“I was only thinking of insulting you.”
Casey pressed against her. “Maybe I can help you make up your mind. I wouldn’t want you to make a wrong decision about me. After all, my reputation is at stake.”
Alex struggled to keep her wits. This wasn’t part of the plan. She’d intended to remove some of the pressure by feigning a lack of interest. She’d intended to dangle herself in front of him, not throw herself into his bed. In another minute they’d both be in the loft. It would set a dangerous precedent, and it would ruin her friendly, neighborly facade. If she was going to pull this off, she was going to have to resist.
She looked him straight in the eye and kept her voice light. “Can I take this to mean that the sexual tension hasn’t entirely disappeared?”
A muscle worked in Casey’s jaw. “Not entirely.”
She gave him just a sisterly kiss on the tip of his nose and pushed him away.
“I’m sure it will in time. It’s something we’ll have to work at if we’re going to be friends.”
“Yeah.” He went to the door, wrenched it open, and turned to look at her. “How the hell did you get all that wood chopped?”
Alex put the box of brownies in his hand. “You don’t expect me to tell you all my secrets, do you?”
Chapter Eight
Arms crossed over her chest, Alex stood motionless, looking out the small square pane of glass in the back door of her store. A sameness had settled into her life that hinted at the tedium Casey had warned her about. The first of October had brought a few snowflakes that settled on rock-hard ground and never melted. In the past two weeks, snow had intermittently floated down from a flat, leaden sky and accumulated to no more than an inch or two. It was dry, powdery stuff that blew away under cars and felt like grit underfoot. She’d discarded her skirts and heels in favor of long johns, corduroys, hiking boots, and a down coat. The coat was a source of amusement to Andy and his cronies. Only thin-blooded newcomers wore down this early in the year. This was the first day the temperature had dropped below zero and it was still a warm –5°.
Behind the store an expanse of rutted, snow-covered ground stretched to a birch stand. The trees were ramrod straight, tall, and slender, their color muted by a weak sun sitting low in the sky and the fine, almost invisible snow, that had begun to fall. There was a stolid loneliness to the birch trees. They’d shed all their leaves, giving them a stripped-bare look and now had to endure the harsh Alaskan winter. Not even snow clung to them.
Alex felt as if she were a birch tree standing stiff and purposeless. She served no function in the store. She’d memorized catalogues of fishing equipment and shotgun shells, but business was never brisk enough to occupy two people at once, and the men obviously preferred to talk to Andy. Only one sale from the new stock of cross-country skis had been made. And that was to Bubba Johanssen, whose small natural foods store was on the same highway as Alex’s store. Like good neighbors, they patronized each other’s businesses.
She felt lonely, having no friends for companionship. That traitor, Bruno, had taken to living with Casey. In the beginning she’d trudged up the hill to retrieve the dog, but as the weeks passed she’d left him more and more in Casey’s care. It had simply become too painful to intrude on Casey’s privacy. He’d rebuffed all overtures of friendship, declining casual dinner invitations, finding excuses not to invite her in when she visited his house to inquire about Bruno or to ask advice.
Well, hell, she thought, her mouth narrow with grim determination, she’d go right on standing there like the damn birch trees. Casey and Bruno could go take a hike for all she cared. She wasn’t giving up. She’d still be here when spring came, and who knew, maybe she’d flower.
She suddenly realized darkness had settled around her. The birch trees were no longer visible behind the thick veil of snow that fell outside.
Andy flicked the lights on in the store. “Lord, are you still here? I thought you left hours ago. Don’t you know better than to wait for the snow to build up?”
Alex looked at him blank-faced. No, she didn’t know better than to wait for the snow to build up. She didn’t know much of anything. “It’s been snowing for weeks. I didn’t see any difference—”
“There’s a big difference. This here’s a storm. Look at the size of them flakes.”
“You think traveling will be bad?”
“Traveling won’t be bad in an Alaskan car, but it ain’t gonna be so hot in your worthless little New Jersey car. You got friends in town here? Someone you can stay with?”
“No,” she answered dully, “I don’t have any friends.” She took her down coat from a peg on the wall. “I’m sure if I leave now I’ll be fine.”
Andy shook his head. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
But Alex went out anyway, and two hours later she came to a stop on the two-lane road and released her white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel. She rotated her head to relax neck muscles and peered into the swirling snow that swept over the hood of the little car. Her driveway was just ahead, nothing more than a gash in the black woods, and she knew it was ridiculous to think she could navigate the grade. It would be foolhardy to turn back; the road was quickly disappearing. The driveway at least looked traveled. Casey had obviously been through with his four-wheel drive. She would have to get as far as possible in her car and walk the rest of the way to her cabin. She wasn’t surprised when she slid on the first curve and settled into a drift.
Casey stood in his darkened living room and looked out at a familiar world. He’d lived just about his whole life in Alaska and knew by arctic standards this wasn’t much of a storm. The Fairbanks area was located between two mountain ranges and didn’t get the heavy, drifting snows found on the coast. The weather was holding at five degrees below zero, not low enough to stop school buses from running or damage his insulated plumbing.
Then why was his stomach tied in knots, as it had been for weeks? Because Alex was out there in the storm somewhere. He’d checked on her cabin every half hour since the storm had begun. He wanted to believe she’d stayed at the store, but instinct told him otherwise. Bruno sensed it, too, prowling by the plateglass window, his ears pricked.
Casey scratched the dog’s head. “You’re worried, too, aren’t you, fella?”
Casey had encouraged Bruno to stay with him. He’d wanted Alex to be lonely, so lonely she’d leave. Every day was an agony for him. He couldn’t live with her, and he couldn’t live without her. It took every ounce of willpower he possessed to avoid her. Knowing she was less than a quarter mile through the birches was torture.
When she left each morning, he secretly added logs to her dwindling woodpile and checked to make sure she had enough kerosene. Every evening he waited at the tree line until he was sure she was safe and snug for the night. He dreamed of having her in his bed, his mouth on hers, his hands caressing her, and…
When it was all he could do to keep from rushing to her side, he retreated to his house where he cursed himself for being a fool and getting involved. Now he cursed himself for stealing Bruno from her. At least Bruno would have been another warm body. A dog could be a valuable ally in a snowstorm.
Casey kept vigil in the dark to better see outdoors. He watched for a glimmer of light on the road, on the driveway, in her cabin. It was seven o’clock. If there was no sign of her by seven-thirty, he’d make another sweep of the driveway and head for College.
It had been a long arduous uphill walk. Alex knew she had accomplished it only because Casey had packed the snow with his truck tires. Her white woolen hat was encrusted with snow, which also clung to her frozen pant legs. She’d wrapped the matching scarf around the lower part of her face, but her thick lashes held a layer of hoary frost, and her cheekbones were chalky white with frostbite.
If she hadn’t been so bone-tired, she would have realized the folly of wading through her unplowed drive and stayed on the main road to Casey’s house. But the cold was making her mentally and physically slow. She put her head down and doggedly plodded on through snow that had accumulated knee high.
She drifted onto the shoulder of her driveway, stumbled, and fell face-first, cursing her stupidity because she’d lost her hat and didn’t have the energy to look for it. She pulled herself up and forced herself to continue walking, channeling her reserves to become more alert. She fell once more, but her cabin was within sight.
You’re almost there, she told herself, just a few feet from hot chocolate, a cozy fire in the big woodstove, woolen socks, and warm long johns. She pounded on her thighs to keep blood circulating in her hands and legs, and staggered the distance to her door.
Her cabin was only a few degrees warmer inside than it was outside, but there wasn’t any snow and there wasn’t any wind. She pulled her snow-encrusted mittens off with her teeth and tried to start the kerosene heater, but her fingers were frozen and clumsy in the stygian darkness.
A frustrated, distraught sob caught in her throat and was immediately replaced with an angry expletive. She was angry because Casey had been right. She was a disaster waiting to happen.
She placed her stiff hands under her armpits to thaw. Gritting her teeth, she jumped up and down, swearing that Casey wasn’t going to have the satisfaction of finding her dead.
She tried the heater again and gave a cry of relief when her fingers did all the right things and the machine began to put out warmth into the room. She lit the lantern on her table and felt much better now that she had light.
Alexandra Scott, hardy pioneer of the Alaskan frontier, had saved herself from almost certain death, she thought. She mustered up a little false bravado and told herself there was nothing to this survival business. She began to undress, but decided it would be prudent to visit her outhouse before snuggling into her jammies.
Casey closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against the triple-paned window when he saw the weak glimmer of a light winking through the tops of the birch trees. He drew in a shaky breath and switched on his own lights, including the big floodlights on the outside deck and garage. Emotions were pounding through him as he shrugged into his parka. Anger, relief, remnants of anxiety. He didn’t know whether he wanted to sweep Alex into his arms and let his love pour into her, or grab her by her shoulders and shake her until her teeth rattled.
He’d reached the tree line when he heard the eerie hiss of burning wood and saw the yellow flames shooting high into the air. He broke into a run, the snow dragging at his boots and pant legs, blind fear clogging his throat. He stopped short when he recognized the slim figure silhouetted by the blaze. Her hair was in total disarray, sticking out every which way, snow rapidly collecting on singed tips. She wore no coat, but she wasn’t shivering. The heat of the fire was enough to warm her, as she placidly stared into the inferno with trancelike contemplation.
Casey watched her for a moment before speaking. “Should we break out the marshmallows?”
“I haven’t got any.”
He saw that her hair was considerably shorter and took a deep breath to control the tremble he was afraid would surface in his voice. “What happened to your hair?”
“I suppose it caught fire,” Alex answered matter-of-factly. “I burned down my outhouse.”
“I’ve noticed. How did you manage this?”
“I had a little candle on the shelf, but my hands were cold when I tried to light it, and before I knew it the toilet paper was burning, and then my jacket caught fire. I guess my hair must have been on fire, too. I ran outside and took my jacket off and rolled in the snow.” She turned glazed eyes to him. “I’m fine now, except I didn’t get to use the outhouse. Do you suppose I could borrow your bathroom?”
Casey had his jaw clenched so tightly the bones in his face ached. He removed his jacket and helped her into it. He zipped it all the way up to her neck and pulled the hood ov
er her smoking hair. He had to fight the strong urge to pull her to him and cover her face with kisses. Instead, he grabbed her by the upper arm and briskly tugged her up the hill to his house. He was afraid to talk to her and say something he’d regret, like beg her to marry him, afraid he’d burst into tears because she’d almost been killed.
He led her inside and set her on the couch, where he pulled off her boots. Her feet were white and frozen, just as he’d expected. He added a log to the fire and brought her a thick blanket.
“I’m going back down the hill to make sure the fire’s out,” he said. “Get out of those clothes and wrap yourself in the blanket. Your feet are going to hurt when they thaw. Keep them warm and rub them very gently. Will you be all right?”
Alex gave him a thumbs-up. She figured she’d be all right as long as she didn’t look in a mirror. She wiggled her toes and walked gingerly to the bathroom, amazed at her state of mind. She’d almost frozen to death. She’d almost gone up in a blaze of glory in her outhouse. Why wasn’t she depressed? Why wasn’t she crying and shaking?
She studied her sooty reflection and grinned because she looked ridiculous and because she was pleased at her resilience. And because it was so obvious how much Casey cared for her, no matter how hard he tried to hide it. Her skin still tingled where he had touched it; her mind savored the memory of how longingly he had looked at her.
By the time Casey had reached the clearing, the fire had burned itself out. He kicked snow on the embers until he was satisfied it posed no threat to the surrounding woods or nearby cabin. He quickly chose some clothes for Alex and extinguished the heater and lantern. Maybe she’d finally realize she didn’t belong here and leave. If she didn’t, he was going to have to find a way to get her off the mountain.
Alex was fresh from a shower when Casey returned. “Thank you,” she replied breezily, accepting the bundle of clothing, clutching a towel to her chest.