Authors: Leah Marie Brown
“What about you? Will you take the Scotsman?”
My stomach flips, and the breath leaves my body in a quick rush. I have a slightly woozy, disoriented feeling that reminds me of rappelling, that moment right after I step off the ledge and am suspended in midair. Will I land it, or will I lose control and fall to my death? Pure adrenaline. That’s what it feels like when Calder fixes his dimpled grin on me. A shot of pure white-hot adrenaline.
“A ride would be fabulous.” I look him in the eye because I don’t want him to know how much his flirting affects me. “Thank you.”
“A ride?” His blue eyes twinkle in mock innocence beneath raised eyebrows. “Is that what you want?”
“Never mind,” I say, seizing my suitcase handle. “I’ll walk.”
Calder grabs the handle, putting his hand over mine, lacing his fingers between my fingers. I can’t move. The adrenaline, the fight, the flirt, drains out of me. Calder. Sitka. Life. Suddenly, it’s all just too much. I look up at him and tears—stupid, weak, hot tears—fill my eyes.
Calder’s grin fades. “I am sorry,” he says, taking his hand off mine. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”
He is standing across from me, staring at me.
Putain! Stop crying, Fanny. Do you want him to think you are one of those silly over-wrought girls who weeps at the first sign of stress? The kind of girl who shreds a box of Kleenex watching insipid rom-coms? This is not a rom-com and you are not a sniffling fool, so stop acting like one!
“I’m fine,” I say, willing the tears away. “I am just exhausted after traveling and having to get new luggage.”
“New luggage?” He looks down at my new suitcase and then back at me. “What happened to your other luggage?”
“Some jerries broke into my hotel room and stole it.”
“Jerries?”
“Drug addicts.”
Calder says something in Gaelic that sounds rather profane and runs his hand through his close-cropped hair.
“You weren’t hurt, were ye, lass?”
“I’m fine.” Happiness rises inside my chest like effervescent golden champagne bubbles. It might seem ridiculous, but Calder’s obvious concern makes me feel less alone in this great, wild frozen place. “I wasn’t in the room when it happened.”
Calder speaks again. The words rumble somewhere deep in his chest before coming out of his mouth, too thick with his brogue for me to decipher. Honestly? I don’t want a translation. It’s sexier to imagine what he meant to say.
He takes my suitcase from me and walks to the back of his jeep. He opens the trunk, tosses my suitcase inside, and strides back to me.
“Come on,
banfhlath
,” he says, holding out his hand. “Your chariot awaits.”
I put my hand in his. He leads me around the vehicle to the passenger side and opens the door. I have to climb onto the running board to get inside his jeep—a slightly humiliating reminder of my height deficit sans Louboutins. He waits until I have slid onto the seat and fastened my safety belt before closing the door.
Laney leans forward. “You are my hero, Fanny!”
“Why? Just because I carried your suitcase up a hill?”
“No,” she whispers. “Because you’ve been in Alaska less than twenty-four hours, and already you’ve snagged yourself a totes bae lumbersexual.”
Calder slides another suitcase into his trunk, preventing me from immediately responding. When he walks back to retrieve the last carryon, I swivel around and look at Laney. Her wide eyes are twinkling behind her massive glasses.
“What is a lumbersexual?”
“A metrosexual man, but with more brawn.”
I am about to respond when I notice two bags of groceries on the seat beside her. Laney has it all wrong. Calder isn’t into me. He didn’t seek me out. He was probably out running errands and saw me on the side of the road.
Calder tosses the last of our luggage into the back of his jeep and slams the trunk.
“I haven’t snagged anyone.”
“Oh,” Laney chuckles. “If you haven’t snagged him yet, you’re almost there. Keep reeling, girl. Keep reeling!”
It’s Called Foreplay
“Thank you for….”
“Rescuing you?” Calder winks. “Go ahead. You can say it. You were a damsel in distress, and I rescued you.”
We are standing on the front porch at the Each One, Teach One facility. Actually, I am standing and the cocky Scot is leaning against the railing, looking far too lumbersexual for his own good.
“Thank you for rescuing us.”
Calder really did rescue us. He drove us up the hill, carried our bags into the facility, started a fire in the fireplace, and, you know those two bags of groceries? It turns out they were for me. A few welcome to Sitka goodies from the hottie.
Calder stands and walks down the stairs. I follow him to his jeep and awkwardly stand beside his driver’s side door. I should say something else, but I just don’t know what. My emotions are as fragile as the icicles hanging from the eaves over our heads. The slightest provocation and I might shatter into a thousand pieces.
It starts to snow, iridescent flakes tumbling from the sky and falling on Calder’s broad shoulders, making lacy patterns on the sleeves of my black coat. I reach up to brush them from his shoulders when he wraps an arm around my waist, pulls me against him, and kisses me. It’s not slow and tender like the airport kiss. This kiss is urgent and demanding.
The heat from his lips spreads down my body like a forest fire. I moan low in my throat and lean into him, oblivious to everything except the fast, furious flames of desire consuming me. He pushes his tongue inside my mouth, the flames ignite between my thighs, and I am in deep trouble.
This is crazy. I need to throw some water on Hottie McScottie before he starts thinking I am seriously into him—or worse, I start thinking he is seriously into me. Because he’s not. Calder is just a big handsome grinning flirt. He flirted with Vivia. He flirted with most of the women in our tour group. Now, he’s flirting with me.
I pull away and run a hand over my wet, swollen lips. Calder draws in a jagged breath and stares at me, blinking, as if he is a caveman who has stumbled out of his dark cave and discovered the first cavewoman. I am waiting for him to thump his chest and grunt, “Me, man. You, woman.”
“Look,” I say, taking a step back to put some space between us. “I don’t know what that just was, but—”
“It’s called foreplay,” he says, a grin stretching across his tanned face. “Didn’t ye ken what foreplay is, lass?”
And just like that, the red hot flames of passion turn into white-hot flames of anger.
“Of course I know what foreplay is, you egotistical—”
Calder throws his head back and laughs. I am less amused. He opens his door and climbs inside.
“Do you like salmon?” he asks, rolling the window down and leaning his arm on the frame. “I ken a place that serves a seafood fondue that will make you swoon.”
“Seafood fondue?” I repeat, trying to follow the turn in conversation. “Swoon?”
“You ken you didn’t make it easy for a man to ask you out on a date?”
Date? Am I hearing things? Is the thin air messing with my brain or did Hottie McScottie just ask if he could take me to dinner?
“I’m here to fix my life, not fall in love.”
“I’m asking you to dinner. Who said anything about falling in love?”
“If I let you take me to dinner, you’ll want something more, and that will only lead to heartache.”
He chuckles. “You are definitely a Parisian.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means you have an inflated sense of self. Just because a man asks you to dinner doesnae mean he is going to fall in love with you. Do you really believe you’re that irresistible? Or are you afraid to be alone with me because you find
me
too irresistible?”
I hear Vivia’s voice in my head. Damnnnn, girlfriend! You can close the books, because the man just schooled you.
“Pfft.” I roll my eyes. “I am not afraid to be alone with you.”
“Then what is it?”
“My life is as complicated as a ball of yarn right now. I don’t need one string to tangle me up.”
His grin slips, and he shakes his head. An uncomfortable silence hangs in the air between us. Finally, he turns the key in the ignition, and the jeep rumbles to life.
“This isn’t San Francisco or Paris,
banfhlath
. Alaska is rugged and lonely and sometimes unexpectedly brutal. You need friends.”
I look down the road and notice the smooth channel Laney’s suitcase left in the snow when I pulled it up the hill. Calder is right. If I am going to survive the next year in Sitka, I am going to need a few friends. Besides, making friends was one of the reasons I agreed to come to this miserable frozen tundra, wasn’t it?
“Ah!” He smiles broadly and dimples appear on either side of his lips like two enthusiastic punctuation marks. “There it is!”
“What?”
“That look that tells me you ken I’m right.”
The smile that lifts the corners of my mouth is as instinctual as inhaling and exhaling. I can be a pessimistic person, inevitably seeing the glass on the verge of being half empty even as it’s being refilled, but it is becoming increasingly difficult to maintain my natural negative state while in Calder’s presence. He’s too damned charming for my good.
“Seafood fondue, huh?”
“The best.”
Why not have dinner with Calder MacFarlane? Sure, the restaurant might disappoint—I mean, it is Sitka—and we might discover we have absolutely nothing in common, but I won’t know unless I step out from behind my wall.
“Okay,” I say, trying not to stare at his dimples, white teeth, and sexy, kissable lips. “I would love to have dinner with you.”
“I knew you would,” he says, winking. “How about Saturday?”
“Umm. Let me check my social calendar.” I press a finger to my temple and pretend to think before breaking into my own grin. “Saturday sounds great.”
It’s only Monday. I wish Calder would have suggested dinner for Tuesday or even Wednesday night.
Merde!
Maybe Laney had it all wrong. Maybe I haven’t snagged Calder. Maybe he’s already snagged me.
“I’ll pick you up at eighteen hundred hours.”
“Aye-aye, Captain,” I say, giving him a salute.
“First, you fall at my feet and then you salute me? You’re making this too easy, lass.”
“Shut up!”
Calder only laughs and reaches around his seat, grabs the bags of groceries, and hands them to me.
“What are these?”
“Only a few necessities. I thought you might be hungry after your flight, and I wasnae sure if the facility would have food in the pantry.”
The unexpectedly thoughtful gesture takes my breath away. Literally. I stand there, holding a plastic grocery bag in each hand, my mouth hanging open. Calder throws the jeep in reverse.
“Welcome to Sitka,
banfhlath
.”
Before I even have a chance to thank him for rescuing me, he backs the jeep up and drives off. The snow is falling heavier now, tumbling from the cobalt sky like a troupe of tiny dancers spinning and pirouetting. I turn my face up to the heavens and let the flakes dance across my cheeks. Tears burn behind my eyes, but it’s not from the sunlight.
Blue Balls
Text from Vivia Perpetua Grant:
Abso-fucking-lutely amazing news! After a skazillion rejection letters, I finally got the call! Kensington Books wants to publish my novel! Love & Horror: A Mary Shelley Romance will live! Mwuahahaha!
Text from Vivia Perpetua Grant:
P.S. Wait! Can you send a postscript text? I am going to have to google that. BRB
Text from Vivia Perpetua Grant:
I am baaack. Big Boss Lady just gave me an über-fab assignment, which means I will be incommunicado for a while. Check your mail. I sent you a little something—something so you don’t go through Vivia withdrawals.
Vivia’s trifecta of texts pulls me from a deep, dreamless slumber. The room is still dark even though a quick glance at the clock on my bedside table tells me it is already half past eight. The sky outside my window is a deep bruised purple. The bloated silver moon hangs low in the sky, half-hidden behind the snow-covered mountains that wrap around Sitka like an embrace. In the distance, a dog lets out a long, baleful cry as if distressed at morning’s arrival.
I read Vivia’s texts again and wince as a pang of jealousy stabs my heart. A book deal, an über-fab assignment, and a fabulous French lover. Some people have all of the luck.
Vivia is lucky. No matter how fast she runs or how far she falls, fortune seems to follow her wherever she goes. She bumps into celebrities, befriends heiresses who invite her to swank parties, and lands plum assignments that take her all over the world.
We’ve had the providence versus perseverance debate dozens of times. Vivia believes success is earned through perspiration and perseverance. She doesn’t believe in luck, but people who are inherently lucky usually don’t believe in luck. They are standing too close to their lucky star, blinded by the silvery light of serendipity, to notice that others aren’t covered in the same stardust.
Once, we were standing in a long queue at the airport in Miami, waiting to check in for a flight, when a passenger service agent approached Vivia and offered her a courtesy bump up to first class. Even though there were hundreds of passengers standing in line, this agent made a beeline to Vivia. No explanation. Just a completely random act of kindness. And things like that happen to Vivia all of the time.
That’s not to say she hasn’t worked hard for her success. Vivia is a very hard worker, but she labors under one generous lucky star.
Text to Vivia Perpetua Grant:
Congratulations,
mon amie
! I always knew you would hit the big time. Just don’t forget us little people when your book is made into a movie and you are rubbing elbows with stars.
Text from Vivia Perpetua Grant:
Whaddayacrazy? You’ll be sitting beside me, sharing my popcorn and ogling Zac Efron (he will, of course, play the part of the young, tortured poet).
Barely a second passes before I get another text from Vivia.