Manhunt

  She inhaled the pungent woodsy air, tilted her head toward the azure sky curving above her, and smiled bravely. “Boy, this is great, isn’t it, Bruno? This is the last frontier. Good-bye smog. Adios, rush-hour traffic. Au revoir, pooper scooper. Look at that sky. Smell that air.”

  She lowered her head and glanced around. The smile lost a little of its bravery. “Look at that… house.” It was a log cabin, stained dark brown by time and neglect, perched atop the highest point of her property. It had a tin roof and shuttered windows. Wild roses had grown over the cabin, giving it a fairy-tale quality. It looked like a troll’s house, Alex decided. The idea struck her as so preposterous and, at the same time, so apt that she laughed out loud at the possibility.

  Michael Casey stalked into the clearing and stopped dead still. It was her! The woman he’d tried to rescue. Her and her big, dumb dog. What the devil was she doing here?

  A protective reflex action brought his hand to his nose. He tenderly touched the Band-Aid and grimaced. Take it easy, Casey, he told himself. This is just some bizarre coincidence. Maybe she came to say thank-you.

  He watched her take a quick survey of the land, then focus her attention on the cabin. She shook her head, and her low husky laugh carried over to him. “Well, don’t just stand there with your mouth hanging open,” he muttered to himself. “Say something!”

  “If old Harry caught you laughing at his house like that, he’d feed you piecemeal to the raccoons.”

  Alex whirled around. She’d been so engrossed in the landscape that she hadn’t heard the man approach. He had a knife stuck into his belt and a gun slung halfway down his leg. In her mind that placed him alongside New York street gangs and lunatics escaped from Rahway prison. For the first time in her life, she felt genuinely threatened. A lump of fear rose to her throat when she realized he was standing between her and her car.

  Casey grinned and shook his head, his eyes openly appraising the woman in front of him. She was a knockout. A little bedraggled, but lean and classy in her designer jeans and forest green silk shirt. She looked like a woman who was used to exercising authority, and he considered readjusting his opinion of her as a dingbat. There was intelligence behind those blue eyes and a grim determination to the set of her mouth. He was sure she had no idea who he was, and that her initial reaction to his sudden appearance had been fear, though that had quickly changed to something else. Something mysterious.

  “You look like a woman who’s just been cornered by a grizzly.”

  Not a grizzly, she decided. Grizzlies were big and shaggy with beady eyes. This guy was a ten. He wore a navy flannel shirt that had obviously been through many washings, but looked tailor-made to fit broad shoulders that tapered to a flat stomach and trim waist. The sleeves had been rolled to the elbow, displaying strong tanned forearms lightly covered with blond hair. He was narrow-hipped and lean-legged, and his faded jeans clung to his body in such a way that the hard muscles of his thighs were subtly displayed.

  His sandy-colored hair was partially sun-bleached and in need of a cutting. When he smiled, his eyes were enhanced by laugh lines that testified to an outdoor life and a healthy sense of humor. A fresh scar slanted across his straight boy-next-door nose and angled across his left cheekbone. A Band-Aid stretched across the bridge of his nose, partially hiding a multicolored bruise. The impression of ferocity produced by the scar was counterbalanced by the generous, sensuous mouth that curved at the corners.

  For a brief moment Alex smiled while she imagined him as a little boy. He would have been completely unmanageable and mischievous and totally irresistible. And he wasn’t so different now, she decided, reaching the conclusion that his smile was probably more lethal than his gun.

  Alex held her hand up. “Stop. Don’t come one step closer, or I’ll sic my dog on you.”

  Bruno looked at Casey and wagged his tail. The animal stepped over to him, sat on his booted foot, and smiled hello.

  “You mean this ferocious beast?”

  “He’s very protective.”

  “Yeah. I can see that.”

  Alex narrowed her eyes. He was laughing at her. What nerve. She felt like punching him in the nose, but obviously someone had beaten her to it. And what was he doing on her property anyway? She should have him arrested for trespassing.

  “So who are you? And what are you doing here?” Alex asked.

  “Michael Casey, and whoever you are, you’re on private property. You drove that flashy car on my private road, scaring the daylights out of half the wildlife on this mountain. Now if you don’t mind, I’d like you to take your big dumb dog and haul your cute little tush out of here.”

  Harry had told her about Michael Casey. He was her only neighbor, and he was supposed to be old. My good old friend, Casey, Harry had said. And so here was old Casey, insulting her dog and ordering her around.

  “My dog is not dumb. My name is Alexandra Scott, and I’m going to leave my cute little tush here for as long as I like. This is my land and my cabin, and that pathetic excuse for a driveway is mine too!”

  “That’s impossible. Harry Kowalski owns this patch of land.”

  “Harry Kowalski sold it. He moved to New Jersey to live with his daughter, and I bought this land from him.”

  “Oh, swell. You probably own swampland in Florida, too.”

  “Something wrong with this property?”

  “It’s a beautiful piece of land, but it’s a little… primitive.”

  “Actually, I was led to believe that it had a few more improvements,” Alex said, casting a furtive glance at the driveway.

  “Harry hasn’t lived here for over three years. He moved into town when he broke his hip. The place has gotten kind of overgrown.”

  “Well, Bruno and I will just have to whip it back into shape. Won’t we, Bruno?”

  Bruno sat motionless on Casey’s foot. He blinked in the fading sun and yawned.

  “Boy, this dog can really handle excitement,” Casey said, scratching Bruno’s ear. “How old is he?”

  “I think he’s pretty old. He was my grandfather’s dog. When my grandfather died last year, Bruno came to live with me.”

  “You should put him on a diet. He must weigh two hundred pounds. My foot is falling asleep.”

  “I wasn’t home very much. He didn’t get enough exercise.” She made a sweeping gesture with her hand. “Harry said all the cleared land is mine.” “Yup.”

  Alex pointed to the cabin. “And that cabin. Is that the only cabin on the property?”

  “Yup.”

  “Oh, boy.”

  Casey felt a sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach. “You weren’t planning on living here, were you?”

  “Yup.”

  “Oh, boy,” he echoed, his eyebrows rising slightly. Harry Kowalski was an old scoundrel. He’d sent this woman on a five-thousand-mile wild-goose chase, knowing perfectly well that she’d never be able to live in the crude house. He almost felt sorry for her, but there was something about Alexandra Scott that discouraged pity. She seemed invincible.

  “It looks… cute,” Alex said hopefully.

  “It’s well built and still sturdy. So far as I know the roof doesn’t leak. Those are the high points. After that it’s pretty much downhill.”

  Alex thought of the four-hundred-thousand-dollar Princeton condo she’d just left and rolled her eyes. Of course it had a good-sized mortgage but, even so, the swap was a bad deal. She’d blithely traded a Jacuzzi for an outhouse, and the astonishing thing was that she felt little remorse over it. She’d been a victim of burnout. And then she’d had her biological clock to contend with. She’d found it increasingly depressing to pass by the baby-food section in the supermarket and know there wasn’t a baby in her immediate future.

  Alex smiled sadly. She had to admit, this had been just a tad too drastic. If her mother ever found out about this, she’d have her committed. The smile grew wider at the thought of her mother’s reaction to a house without cable TV. Yes, inde
ed, her mother would definitely think she was crazy. But her mother would be wrong.

  Despite the problems with her newly acquired property, Alex felt fairly sane and satisfied. She was simply walking to the beat of a different drummer, she told herself. Besides, she’d always rallied to a challenge, and this certainly was a challenge.

  “Okay, Bruno and Michael Casey, let’s go take a look at this wonderful cabin,” Alex said.

  Chapter Two

  Casey and Bruno grinned at each other and trailed behind Alex. They followed her into the little cabin and squinted in the darkness. It was almost square, consisting of one large room with a sleeping loft built into the back wall. Remnants of a mattress lay strewn across the loft and spilled onto the floor below. An ominous black iron cookstove, bordered on either side by dusty shelves, dominated the wall to her left. An ugly, crude plank table sat forlorn in the center of the room, illuminated by the weak light barely filtering through the grimy windows.

  Alex felt her heart sink. Never in a million years had she expected anything like this. It was a hundred times worse on the inside than it was on the outside. Not even a troll could live in this squalor.

  “Yuck,” Alex said. “Did Harry actually live here?”

  “For twenty-two years. There are lots of cabins like this stuck away in the woods.”

  “The Alaskan way of life?”

  “For some.”

  With the heel of her hand, Alex wiped a circle of dirt off the one window that wasn’t boarded up and stared with delighted surprise at the scarlet sun setting behind the valley. “That’s incredible,” she said.

  Casey’s gaze dropped from her elegant shoulders to her perfect backside. “Incredible,” he agreed.

  He reluctantly raised his eyes and walked to her side. “There’s a moose that strolls across the muskeg every morning. If you look out this window around 10:00 A.M. you’ll see her just about dead ahead. And in the winter, when the ground is covered with snow, the whole world will sparkle red and pink and orange as the sun rises above the Alaska Range.”

  Alex continued to watch the sunset. She’d lived her entire life staring at Dumpsters, parking lots, and privacy fences—and now she had her own moose to look at.

  “I think I’m going to like Alaska,” she said. “Where’s the nearest supermarket?”

  “The nearest store is Bud’s Grocery, and it’s about eight miles down the road,” Casey said. “It’s pretty basic. Not a lot of gourmet foods, but the vegetables are local in the summer, and Bud’s wife bakes bread fresh every day.”

  He realized Alexandra Scott was shivering, and his eyes dropped to her tailored silk shirt. The shirt was entirely inappropriate for the weather. It was also sexy as hell in an unintentional way, caressing the curve of her breast, showing a hint of the lacy bra beneath the fabric. It was undoubtedly very expensive. And it was generating dangerous emotions in Casey. He imagined the shirt would be cool and smooth and the woman would be warm and firm. She’d be nice to hold close. Nice to kiss. And he suspected she’d break his nose again if he got physical.

  “Are you cold?” he asked.

  “The cabin is damp, and I’ve brought all the wrong clothes. I left in such a rush I just didn’t think about swapping silk for flannel. And I jumped off a pier a couple days ago, trying to rescue Bruno, and the water was so cold that I’m still having trouble getting warm. Chronic hypothermia.”

  Good Lord, she thought. She was babbling. Last time she was this flustered she was in the sixth grade and she lost the top to her bathing suit in the surf at Point Pleasant. It was Michael Casey. There was something in his eyes that made her stomach feel fluttery. And there was something about the way his mouth tipped up at the corners that made her stomach feel warm. And best not to think about the rest of him because he was possibly the most ruggedly gorgeous man she’d ever seen. If he came any closer, she worried the soles of her sneakers might melt.

  Casey stood hands on hips, trying hard not to smile too wide. She was probably going to catch something—a cold or pneumonia. And he’d be the one who’d have to take care of her because he was her only neighbor. She’d probably expect him to make her soup and wait on her hand and foot. He gritted his teeth at the rush of pleasure that thought brought him. Casey, he told himself, your thoughts are traveling in dangerous directions. He unbuttoned his flannel shirt and tugged it from his jeans.

  “Now that you’re in Alaska, you have to dress more sensibly,” he said, helping Alex into the shirt, carefully buttoning each button and rolling the sleeves to above her wrists.

  Alex stood absolutely still, barely breathing, while the warmth of his touch radiated from her heart to her fingertips. It was like being microwaved, she thought, silently admiring the broad expanse of masculine chest hidden under a green T-shirt. Casey-Barstow, Inc., Air Cargo was printed in large white letters across the shirt. “Are you Casey-Barstow?”

  “I’m half of it.”

  “Are you rich?”

  “Yup.”

  Alex sighed. It didn’t seem fair to have been given a body like that and to be rich, too. He must have been right at the head of the line when God was giving out stuff.

  Casey looked at his watch. “In another half hour it’ll be dark. My house is about an eighth of a mile up the hill. You can stay with me tonight, and tomorrow—”

  “Are you crazy? I hardly know you.”

  Casey grinned. “I’m offering you the use of my house, not my body.”

  “Oh, hah!”

  “ ‘Oh, hah’? What does that mean?”

  “It means I don’t trust you. For Pete’s sake, you’re wearing a gun.”

  “It’s in case I run into a bear.”

  “How awful! You mean you’d shoot the poor defenseless creature?”

  Casey stared at her, nonplussed. “You ever see a bear?”

  “Of course. Lots of times. In pictures. On television. Once in a zoo.”

  “You ever see a bear up close? Really close?”

  Alex pressed her lips together in annoyance. “Not lately.”

  They glared at each other for a moment. Casey shifted his weight, and a smile twitched at the corners of his mouth. “Would you trust me if I wasn’t wearing a gun?”

  “Absolutely not.” Harry had given his neighbor a glowing recommendation, but Harry was an old man. Harry didn’t have to worry so much about hormones.

  “So, you think I’m more dangerous than a bear?”

  He was clearly laughing at her again. How insufferable. “I suppose your male ego enjoys that ranking.”

  “Puts me at the top of the heap of local predators.”

  Alex looked him straight in the eye. “Are you telling me you’re a predator?”

  “Maybe predator was the wrong word. How about we substitute animal for predator? I could be at the top of the heap of local animals.”

  “That might be true,” Alex conceded.

  Casey took her left hand and examined it. “No ring. Can’t be married. Engaged? Living with someone?”

  “Nope.”

  “Sworn off men?”

  “Heavens no!” Alex snuggled inside the borrowed shirt. It was still warm from Casey and smelled wonderfully male, like campfire and pine and a hint of musky aftershave. “One of the reasons I came to Alaska was to find a husband.”

  “Oh, boy.” Just what he didn’t need. Old Harry must have done this on purpose, his idea of a joke. He was probably laughing his fool head off in New Jersey.

  “You don’t have to look so alarmed. You’re not my type,” Alex told him.

  “What’s wrong with me?”

  “You’re much too handsome. And you’re rich. I want someone plain. Someone a little boring.”

  Casey didn’t want to marry her either, but he didn’t like being rejected. “I refuse to give up my money, but I could try to be boring.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Why do you want someone boring?”

  “Not exactly boring, more like
stable. Someone with roots. Someone with common sense. Someone who’s good at being contented. Someone with plain brown hair.”

  “Someone who has all the qualities you lack?”

  “Yeah. How did you know that?”

  “You’re obviously as crazy as a coot.” Casey pushed her out of the dark cabin. “So where are you staying tonight? Are you going to sleep in the cabin? With the mice and the spiders?”

  Alex made a face at him. “No, I’m going to sleep in my tent. I’m all prepared. Before I left New Jersey, I bought nine hundred dollars’ worth of camping equipment.”

  “Have you ever used any of it?”

  “Nope.”

  “Have you ever been camping before?”

  “Nope.”

  “Do you at least know how to set up this brand-new tent?”

  “I’m sure it comes with directions,” she said defensively.

  “Uh-huh. Let’s go get it and see how good you are at following directions.”

  An hour later Alex stared at the bright orange-and-blue tent spread out on the grass, looking like a giant toadstool. “I could have done that.”

  Casey wiped a trickle of sweat from his hairline. “Yeah. I could tell by the way you kept asking if it was upside down. I hate to rain on your parade, but I don’t think you’re going to last three days without a hair dryer.”

  What he really believed was that she was beautiful with or without a hair dryer, and if he hadn’t been there to help, she would have had the tent up in half the time.

  Alex was speechless. She’d been thinking the very same thing. She’d expected something rustic when she made the deal with Harry. Something that involved a fireplace, blue enamel mugs, braided rugs. It never occurred to her that she’d have to do without a hair dryer. She tried unsuccessfully to slick down her wild mass of windblown tangles. How was she ever going to land a husband without a hair dryer? She pressed her lips together. The sort of husband she wanted wouldn’t care about her hair. He would see beyond that. Everything would be fine, she assured herself. She stuck her chin out. “Hmmmph.”