“Cookies are good,” she said as a way to fill the void.
“You can thank the Pillsbury Doughboy. All I did was slice and heat.”
“Still, you sliced them very evenly and heated them to the perfect degree of doneness.”
“Are you making fun of me?” His eyes teased.
Feeling suddenly shy, she glanced away. Oh, she was getting in way over her head here. Liking this guy too much, when they had no future together.
But she was in no position to ask for anything more from him than sex, nor did she want to. For one thing he was an Alaskan and she was a New Yorker. For another, she was on the rebound, still aching from Lloyd’s betrayal. She had a lot of things to sort out before she could ever entertain a relationship that extended beyond the physical. With anyone.
Maybe coming here hadn’t been such a great idea, after all.
Disconcerted, she moved away from Quinn and turned her attention to the photographs artfully arranged on the paneled wall on the opposite side of the room.
There was Quinn playing hockey. In another he was standing on the summit of Mount McKinley grinning like a happy kid. In a third he was kayaking. In a fourth he was guiding a group of tourists down white-water rapids in a rubber raft.
One picture caught her eye. It featured six muscular, bare-chested teenagers laughing and lobbing fistfuls of blueberries at each other. She recognized four of the boys from the magazine advertisement.
Quinn hadn’t changed much. His hair was darker, his shoulders broader, but he still possessed the same insouciant grin and macho stance.
“That was the summer we all worked in Juneau taking tourists down the Mendenthall.” He come up behind her and was standing so near she could almost feel his chin touching the top of her head. “We’d been picking blueberries and things got out of hand. My sister Meggie, the camera buff, sneaked up on us and snapped this photo.”
“Who’s that?” She pointed to a swarthy, dark-haired boy with straight white teeth.
“That’s Jesse, Meggie’s husband. They weren’t married then, of course. In fact, I believe that was the summer Jesse’s father married Caleb’s mother.”
“And this guy?” She pointed to a lanky, string-bean fellow whom Quinn had in a headlock while he smashed berries into his hair.
“That’s Kyle.”
“You two look like the best of friends.”
“We were.”
Something in his voice made Kay turn and look at him. “You’re not friends anymore?”
Quinn shrugged. “I don’t talk to him much. He met some girl who’d come to Alaska for the summer. Kyle fell head over heels. Moved to California for her. Haven’t seen him in twelve years.”
“You act like he betrayed you by falling in love.”
Quinn cracked an uneasy smile. “It wasn’t the falling-in-love part, it was the leaving Alaska. That woman put a ring in his nose, and he let her pull him around by it. Guess that’s why I’m so determined to find a wilderness wife.”
“Because you’re not willing to compromise?”
“Not when it comes to leaving Alaska.” He thrust his chest out as if he was proud of his stubbornness. “In fact, that’s what happened to my last relationship. I asked Heather to marry me, but she refused to move to Bear Creek. I wasn’t about to go to Cleveland where she lived. If a woman wants to love me, she’s got to love Alaska, too. It’s a package deal.” He took a sip of his hot chocolate, then said, “You can quote me in your article.”
Kay raised her eyebrows. With such an obstinate attitude the man might be hard-pressed to find his perfect mate. So why did she find his stubbornness attractive? Maybe it was the clear-cut, simple way he said what was on his mind and if people didn’t like it, well, too bad. “I’ll be sure to note that. Getting your story for the article is the reason I’m here.”
“The only reason?” His eyes sought hers.
“No. It’s not the only reason.”
“No?” He gave her a quirky smile, which struck her the wrong way. As if he was feeling pretty cocky about his ability to attract her all the way across the continent.
“I needed to get out of the city after breaking things off with Lloyd.”
“Ah.” He grinned all the wider. “So you’re no longer practically engaged.”
“No, I’m not.”
He smirked.
“Stop that.”
“Stop what?”
“Looking so smug. My breaking up with Lloyd had nothing to do with you.”
“I never said it did.”
“Your expression implied it.”
Why was she being so sensitive? What was the matter with her? For the past week, while she packed and made travel arrangements, she had been unable to think of anything but seeing Quinn again, and now that she was here, she was experiencing all kinds of conflicting emotions.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “That sounded argumentative.”
“Hey, I can handle it. If you need to get something off your chest, go right ahead.”
Well, that was refreshing. He was ready to let her spew out her emotions. Her mother and her father and Lloyd encouraged her not to express her feelings. To keep things bottled up. Good little girls didn’t let their anger show. She was damned tired of being good, and here was Quinn egging her on.
“You sure you’re up for this?” She looked into his eyes, saw nothing but sincere interest and acceptance. She leaned forward and set her half-empty mug back on the tray.
“FYI for the article. I don’t want a submissive yes-woman for a wife. I want a true partner who speaks her mind, shares her thoughts with me even though I might not agree with her. I’m a firm believer that passionate couples fight. As long as they fight fair. Hell, if you don’t fight sometimes, if you agree about everything, where’s the spark? Where’s the passion?”
Kay gulped. Oh, yes. She had always felt the same way. Just once when her father came home late, she had longed for her mother to confront him, throw a tantrum, demand he stop sleeping with other women. But Honoria had never once expressed her anger or voiced her opinion. Well-bred wives did not behave that way. Civilized-society women simply went shopping, spending extravagantly, consoling themselves with expensive but totally meaningless gewgaws.
And when she had tried to tell Lloyd her feelings or express her displeasure over something, he’d always headed her off, shut her down, closed her out, reminding her she was a Freemont with a certain level of dignity to maintain.
“You got something to tell me, Kay? Blast away, I’m listening.”
Quinn gave her his full attention, his eyes on her face, his palms splayed over his thighs. Kay couldn’t help but feel that the future Mrs. Scofield was going to be a very lucky woman—just as long as she was willing to move to Alaska.
“All right. It hurt my feelings when you turned down my offer at the Empire State Building. I don’t go around inviting men into my bed willy-nilly. I just thought you should know that.”
“I never thought you did.”
“You thought I was terrible, wanting to cheat on my boyfriend.”
“I didn’t.”
“You did.”
He shook a finger. “Now don’t go telling me what I thought.”
“So what did you think about