The way her eyes flicked over him had Aidan suddenly feeling the need to defend himself, and to prove he was tough enough for this charming little hole-in-the-wilderness even when it was iced over. Tough people lived in warm climates, too, he wanted to say, but for some reason he felt the need to provide proof.
His brain ran through a quick catalogue of his adventures, trying to settle on the most dramatic example to recount; he had endured a near-deadly snakebite in the Brazilian rain forest, an infected baboon bite in Borneo and a scorpion sting in Africa. He’d been nibbled on by fish even scarier than piranhas in the Amazon, suffered a torturous jellyfish sting off the coast of Queensland and had so many vicious insect bites he’d lost count. He’d experienced heat so intense it had melted the rubber soles of his sandals to his feet. He’d battled malaria, giardia, gangrene and dengue fever. Any one of those things had to be worse than a harmless drift of snow...
“I need to get back to the house,” Emily said, before he could decide upon which harrowing ordeal to smoothly weave into the conversation. She tipped the portable monitoring device she held in her hand. “Our baby girl is beginning to stir.”
“I’ll go with you,” Bering said. “I need to make a couple of phone calls.”
The pair walked away hand in hand, and just like that Aidan was left alone with Janie. Not a situation he would have chosen for himself, he thought, as the air seemed to thicken with a fog of silent unease.
AIDAN RACKED HIS brain for something to say. Janie remained silent, slowly spinning the handle of the ax around in her hands; her expression appeared to be one of disdain mixed with a bit of the same discomfort he was feeling. Maybe he should mention their run-in the day before? Get that out of the way and try to clear the air between them.
“So...about yesterday?”
She stared blankly. “What about it?”
“Um, I hope everything turned out okay for you and your son.” Aidan didn’t feel compelled to apologize because he felt certain that he’d done the right thing. A lot of people were woefully uninformed about the importance of bees in this world, and he was more than happy to educate them.
“Everything?”
“Your cake... I didn’t mean to upset anyone. I was just saving the bee. Bees are really—”
“Well, the cake was ruined. But we really don’t need to talk about it, okay? And I think I have a pretty good idea how you feel about your bees. Besides, I couldn’t possibly expect you to understand—” Janie squeezed her eyes shut and dipped her head down. She inhaled deeply and then slowly released the breath, like his mom did when she was practicing yoga.
“What couldn’t I understand?”
She met his look, her green eyes flat and unreadable. “My life. Can we just drop it? I really don’t want to discuss it. Everything is fine.”
Good. She clearly didn’t want him asking, and quite honestly he didn’t want to know.
“You’re pretty handy with an ax, huh?”
“Yes, well, Emily is right about our winters. Chopping wood is something that most people do around here.”
He glanced at the pile of wood in front of them. Plants he could intelligently discuss, and seemed safe territory.
“What kind of wood is this—do you know?”
* * *
UNBELIEVABLE, JANIE THOUGHT. Apparently it wasn’t enough for him to ruin their day yesterday and not even bother to apologize, and then insult her behind her back today, now he felt the need to insult her in person, too? Did she know? Did he think she needed a botany degree to identify the type of trees she’d been chopping for firewood virtually her entire life?
“Birch.”
“Hmm.” Aidan reached down and picked up a chunk. He ran a hand over the fresh-cut surface. “Why birch?”
“What do you mean ‘why birch’?” Janie’s tone held a sharp edge and she didn’t care. “It’s not endangered, if that’s what you’re getting at.”
Aidan let out a surprised chuckle. “Oh, I know that. I’m wondering about the properties that make it suitable for burning.”
She shrugged and informed him confidently, “It’s plentiful here, easy to split and when it’s properly seasoned it has a very high energy content—somewhere in the range of twenty-three MBtus per chord. It’s very efficient.”
He didn’t bother to mask the surprise on his face. Apparently, the fact that a simpleminded small-town mommy like he’d implied her to be had recited an intelligent fact had left him stunned. She was suddenly grateful for the project that Reagan had done earlier in the year, where he’d studied Alaska’s trees and the properties of their wood. She had to admit that her son’s genius often came in handy, even though it nearly as often left her bewildered.
Aidan smiled at her, a slow, wide smile, and his eyes danced with what looked like appreciation—completely the opposite of what she’d expect after hearing his harsh words earlier.
“That’s amazing.”
He was obviously talking about the piece of firewood he held in his hands, but his eyes were fastened on hers. They reminded her of that intense, swirling gray of the sky right before a snowstorm—beautiful and a little unsettling. His mouth was tugging up at the corners like he was fighting a grin.
“What is?” An odd sensation crept over her, along with a warm churning in the pit of her stomach. The combination was something she hadn’t felt in a very long time. Not since... Wait...what? Unacceptable—she was too old to be affected by the charms of some overgrown beach bum. So what if he was nice-looking? That didn’t impress her. She’d been caught off guard that’s all—surprised that he was being so nice to her after the way he’d talked about her earlier. This kind of hypocrisy was only proof, she reminded herself, of his character—or lack thereof.
“Incredible...”
Her thoughts exactly...
His eyes skimmed over her face and seemed to settle on something in the vicinity of her mouth. Why was he doing that? Did she have something really embarrassing going on there? Something in her teeth? Or dried ketchup from the Tater Tots she’d shared with the twins when she’d run home for lunch earlier today? One hand shot upward and smoothed over her mouth. She tried to wipe at it as unobtrusively as she could. He kept staring...
“What?” she finally snapped.
“Oh, sorry.” He shook his head. “I was thinking about how, uh... Wood is used for so many different purposes throughout the world.”
“Huh?” she said, not quite sure how wood could be a source for such amazed speculation.
“It’s incredible how wood is such a truly renewable resource, don’t you think? There are hardwoods—ironwoods they’re called actually—that I’ve seen that are so solid you virtually can’t cut them without a power saw. Did you know there are some woods so dense they won’t even float?”
“Yeah, well, birch floats and you can cut it and chop it. Here—” She raised her arm, offering him the ax.
“What?” He stared down at it like she was handing him a dirty diaper.
“Chop a piece. You can see for yourself.”
“Oh, uh,” he said, palms up as if in surrender. He shifted uneasily from one foot to the other. “I, um, I don’t think... I mean I don’t—”
She