Working It (24 page)

Reel Him In

Text from Curtis Bower:

Fuckme! You won’t believe who I just spoke to and what she wanted to know.

“Are you afraid of flying, then?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” I look from Calder to the sleek black helicopter parked on the pad behind him. “I love flying.”

“Then what’s the matter?”

What’s the matter? When he said we were going fishing, I thought he meant in a local stream. Instead, we are traveling to an island in a private chartered helicopter. A helicopter piloted by one of his handsome Coast Guard friends. And I am wearing a panda hat.

“I just wasn’t expecting to”—I look over his shoulder at the tall, tanned, grinning helicopter pilot in aviator sunglasses staring through the windscreen at us—“meet your friends.”

“What?” Calder glances over his shoulder and back at me. “You mean Stiffy?”

“Stiffy?”

“It’s his call sign.”

“Of course it is,” I say, smiling politely at the other man. “Just don’t tell me how he earned that name. I don’t want to know.”

Calder chuckles. “Come on,” he says, grabbing my hand. “Keep your head low.”

“I’m barely five feet tall. That shouldn’t be a problem.”

Calder grabs a large steel-framed backpack and leads me over to the helicopter. He has to duck way down to keep from getting decapitated by the spinning blades. He tosses the pack into the helicopter, helps me into the passenger compartment, climbs in after me, and slams the door behind him. He hands me a green headset.

While Calder is adjusting his headset mouthpiece, I whip off the panda hat and run my fingers through my hair, tucking one side behind my ear and artfully arranging the other side to frame my face. Then, I put the headset on, lick my lips, and give Calder a thumbs-up.

He plugs the cable hanging from my headset into a jack in the armrest between us, and I hear an unfamiliar voice in my ears.

“Welcome aboard Stéphanie. My name is John, and I will be your pilot this morning. Flight time to Biorka Island is only five minutes, so sit back and enjoy the scenery.”

The helicopter suddenly lifts straight off the ground and my stomach does a loop de loop. Calder grabs my hand, lifts it to his lips, and kisses my fingers.

It’s cute that he thinks fear is motivating my reluctance and not vanity. There was a time not too long ago when I would have preferred him to believe me to be vain and not cowardly. I would have gone out of my way to prove I was every bit as tough as any ball-scratching, spit-hocking man, that I was not a weak, easily intimidated, frightened, and beaten female.

We are flying over the water, headed toward a distant island on the horizon. It is a clear, sunny day, and fishing vessels of all shapes and sizes are bobbing gently in the sea below.

Calder squeezes my hand. I look at him, and he points out his window. I lean across him, my arm on his thighs. A whale fluke is sticking up out of the water. It’s the most awesome thing I have ever seen.

“You’re lucky.” Calder’s voice comes through my headset. “It’s a little early in the season for whale watching. The gray whales usually don’t start migrating to these waters for another few weeks.”

The island, a large, rocky outcrop with towering spruce and scrubby pines, appears in front of us.

“Biorka Island is famous for its sea lion population,” Calder says, nodding at my window.

I look out my window. Big bloated sea lions lounge on the shore, their silky black bellies pointed toward the sky.

We continue flying inland. John lands the helicopter in a small clearing beside a pond.

“See you back here at seventeen hundred?” Calder asks.

“Roger that,” John responds, his voice crackling in my headset. “Seventeen hundred.”

Calder removes his headset and hangs it on the armrest. He grabs his pack, opens the door, and hops out. He holds his hand out to help me down.

A minute later, we are standing in a frozen field as the helicopter disappears over the tops of the trees.

Calder bends down and kisses my forehead.

“Did you enjoy the ride?”

“
Oui
.” I turn my face up to him and we kiss. “It was amazing. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” he says, kissing me again. He lifts his pack onto his back. “Now, are you ready for a hike?”

“
Absolument
!”

Calder leads me across the clearing and into a thick pine forest. The air smells clean, crisp, with just the hint of something woodsy, like Calder’s cologne. We walk until we come to a cement structure streaked with rust and covered in patches of lichen.

“Do you ken what this is?” Calder asks.

“It looks like a bunker.”

“Verra good,
banfhlath
.” He grins. “The United States Army built this bunker during World War II as part of its harbor defense of Sitka. It would have had two long-firing guns.”

We keep walking through the forest, passing a small log cabin, until we come to a twenty-foot-high rocky outcropping jutting over the sea.

Calder shrugs out of his pack and stands it up on the ground. He removes a silver thermal blanket and spreads it on the ground. We sit on the thermal blanket, our legs dangling over the side of the cliff, while Calder assembles two portable fishing rods. When he finishes, he hands me a rod and we cast our lines.

“What kinds of fish are we likely to catch?”

“Catch or keep?”

“Is there a difference?”

“Well,” he says, letting out his line, “there are some restrictions on fishing halibut and ling cod out of season, but we might catch yelloweye rockfish, Pacific cod, Chinook salmon, or maybe even a salmon shark.”

“Shark?” I pull feet up. “You’re kidding.”

Calder laughs. I’m not kidding, but it’s unlikely we would catch a salmon shark this close to the shore.”

I let my feet dangle again.

“You seem to know a lot about fishing. Is it something you have done for a long time?”

“Since I was a wee lad.” There’s a slight tug on his line, so he reels it in a little and lets it go. “Do you remember the stream on MacFarlane Farm?”

“
Oui
.”

“My
athair
—”

“
Athair
?”

“Father.”

“Ah.”

“My athair taught me how to ride, hunt, fish, drink, and, of course, raise sheep. When he wasn’t around, I had half a dozen uncles.”

“And Angus,”

Calder smiles at the mention of his brother. “Aye.”

“He sounds like a good man.”

“He was.” Calder keeps working his line. “What about your father?”

“What about him?” My tone comes out sharper than I intended.

“Is he a good man?”

Nobody has ever asked me if my father was a good man. “Honestly? I don’t know how to answer that. He’s not a bad man.”

“High praise, indeed.”

“If you want a different answer, ask a different girl.”

Calder whistles.

“I am sorry.” I touch his arm. “Sometimes I can really be a bitch.”

“Didn’t say that,” he says, his voice a rumble in his chest. “That is not a way a lady should describe herself, and you,
banfhlath
, you are a definitely a lady.”

His unexpected praise and sensitivity take my breath away.

“Thank you.” I swallow back a lump of emotion. “After my mother died, my father sent me to boarding school in Switzerland. I only saw him on random holidays, when he wasn’t off to Brussels or paying to have silicone injected into his latest girlfriend. Butt jobs in Bangkok. Facelifts in Frankfurt. Sun, sand, and silicone in Sicily.”

“How old were you when your mother died?”

“Five.”

“Five?” Calder turns to look at me. “Your father sent you away when you were only five years old?”

I nod.

“But ye were still a wee bairn.”

His brogue becomes thicker when he is emotional. It is very sexy.

“Explains my daddy issues, doesn’t it?”

Calder doesn’t laugh. He just stares at me with his big heart-melting blue eyes until I feel I will melt and drip off this ledge into the ocean, to be carried far, far from him.

“I am sorry,
banfhlath
.” His husky voice wraps around me like a security blanket. “You deserved to be protected and adored. All girls deserve to be protected and adored by their fathers. I will protect my daughter with my body and adore her with my whole heart.”

I imagine Calder as the father of my child, holding her in his arms, drying her tears with his big hands, and my heart aches. I can’t breathe. I worry he can read my thoughts, so I look out to sea, staring blankly at a hazy spot on the horizon.

Something tugs on Calder’s line and he curses under his breath. Out of the corner of my eye, I watch him reel the line in, let it go, reel it some more, and finally hoist a big orange fish out of the water.

“You got one!” I tuck my rod into my armpit and clap my hands. “Bravo! I am impressed.”

Calder winks at me and then gets busy removing the hook from the mouth of the fish. He reaches into his pack and pulls out a hand shovel and a large silver cellophane bag.

“Be right back,” he says, standing.

He walks into the forest and returns a minute later with carrying the cellophane bag filled with snow. He puts the fish into the bag and sits back down. He begins to dismantle his fishing rod.

“That’s it? We’re done fishing?”

“Never catch more than you can eat,” he says, smiling. “I’ve caught my lunch, now you need to catch yours.”

“Are you serious?”

“Aye.”

“What if I don’t catch a fish?”

He shrugs.

“I always knew you Scots were a bunch of brutes, but I never imagined you made your women catch their own dinner.”

Calder laughs.

“You’re barbaric!” I playfully punch his arm. “You’d really let me starve?”

He stops laughing and looks deep into my eyes. “Never.”

A bolt of desire shoots through my body like white-hot lightning. I want to reach out, slip my hand inside his jacket, and feel the hard contours of his muscular chest, run my fingers along his ribs, over his flat abdomen, follow the trail of hair from his bellybutton until I feel his hard cock brush against my knuckles.

I don’t care about catching a fish or eating lunch. I just want to strip him naked, press my mouth against his warm skin, and taste all of the sweet secret spots on his body.

“I suppose we might be able to work out some kind of a bargain,” he says, leaning close enough for me to feel his breath on my cheek. “If I share my lunch with you, what will you give me?”

“Not so fast, cowboy.” I lean away. “You didn’t really think I would surrender that quick, did you?”

“Well, you are French.”

“Oh,” I say, letting a little of my line out. “So that’s the way it is. Well, get comfortable, cowboy, because we are not leaving here until there’s a fish flopping on the end of my line.”

Calder chuckles.

“I’ll tell you what,” he says, lying back on the rock and pulling his wool cap over his eyes. “I am going to take a little nap. Wake me when that finally happens.”

He pretends to snore and I poke him in the ribs. He laughs and sits back up.

“There’s something I’d like to ken.”

“
Oui
?”

“When did Dior start selling panda hats?”

“What?” I look up at my eyebrows and see the black fur of Laney’s panda cap. “Oh, this? It’s a long story.”

“No worries.” He leans back. “It doesn’t look as if we will be going anywhere for a while.”

“Ha-ha!”

To my surprise, I find myself telling Calder about my mother’s death, her Dior brooch, and my midnight epiphany. I tell him everything—things I’ve never told anyone before, not even Vivian. I tell him about the times I had panic attacks at work and how I had to lock myself in the bathroom and breathe in a paper bag to keep from passing out. I tell him about the dark moments, late at night, when sleep remained elusive, and I would drag myself into my bathroom, stare in the mirror, and think, “You are a fake, a phony, an imposter pretending to be something you will never be. You are not chic. You are not talented. You are nothing special.”

I tell him how much I envy women like Laney and Vivian, women who know their passions and pursue them without fear. More than that, I envy their innate kindness.

“You are kind,” he says, resting his hand on my shoulder.

“No, I am not.” I move my shoulder so his hand falls away because I suddenly don’t feel worthy of his touch. “I am competitive, organized, materialistic, and judgmental. I am not kind, which is why I don’t have friends. Vivian has friends. Loads of friends. She collects friendships the way I collect designer handbags.”

“’Tis not the quantity of friends one has that matters,
banfhlath
, but the quality.” He speaks in a gentle, chiding tone, as if I were a child, but, to my surprise, it doesn’t piss me off. “Laney, Poppy, Vivian, Fee. Those are some quality women.”

“Fee?”

“Fiona, my sister-in-law.”

“I know who she is,” I say, looking at him. “But she’s not my friend.”

“She will be sad to hear that,” he says, smiling sadly. “She considers you a friend.”

“Me?”

“Aye.”

“Why?”

“She values loyalty above all other traits. You spent your holiday working on a sheep farm because you wanted to support your best friend. When Vivia went missing, you raised the alarm and led the search party. And when she was in the hospital, you slept on the floor to be near her.” He puts his hand on my shoulder again, but this time I don’t shake it off. “You are verra loyal.”

“Fiona said that?”

“Aye.”

“Thank you.” I lean against him. “I needed to hear that.”

He kisses my forehead. Nobody has ever kissed my forehead before, and it feels good. Comforting and good.

“I suspect you know your passion, have known it for a long time, but you let other things distract you.”

“What things?”

Calder inhales and lets his breath out slowly.

“The desire to please others, to appear successful, in control, perfect.” He kisses my forehead again, as if to prepare me for his next words. “You didn’t need to please anyone but yourself. Not your puir, dead mother or your neglectful father.”