Not a one of them the type to bake cookies, raise kids, grow old with.
For a fleeting moment, Jeffrey wondered if he’d made the right choices in life. He’d been so desperate to escape the streets, he’d worked hard to earn good grades, earn a college scholarship, land in a profession where he could make the big bucks.
But at this moment, maybe his last moment, he wondered what the big bucks really bought him. An expensive funeral?
“Katimuk traffic,” continued Thompson, “Cessna 4747sierra is over the town entering a left downwind for landing to the west. Tell Harry to be there.”
Harry? The thought flew from his mind as the plane careened. Jeffrey swore his internal organs swapped places as the aircraft dropped and dipped. In the background, Bruce rasped about some girl wrapping her legs around velvet rims.
Thompson was flicking switches, tugging the stick.
A clunking sound. The nose of the plane pitched up.
“Flaps,” Thompson calmly explained, pulling on the yoke.
Jeffrey swallowed, hard. Flaps. Good.
Thompson reached for the ceiling and pulled something. “Trimming.”
Trimming. Good. Whatever the hell that meant.
A runway appeared through a break in the fog. Jeffrey had never been so damn glad to see a strip of snowflaked dirt in his entire life. Something dark and bulky trotted across it. A moose?
Bruce was crooning about madness in his soul while Jeffrey prayed his last image on earth wouldn’t be a close-up of a moose. Fortunately the beast jogged off the landing strip, disappearing into a white expanse of fog and snow.
The wheels hit solid ground.
Jeffrey released a pent-up breath, debating who ruled the world. Springsteen or Thompson.
And when the plane eased to a smooth stop, the answer was evident. Thompson.
“WE’RE WHERE?” Ten minutes ago, they’d landed. Jeffrey would have kissed the ground, but didn’t want to end up with his lips frozen to it. He’d helped Thompson tie down the plane, then made the fatal mistake of asking where, exactly, they were.
“Katimuk.”
That’s what he thought Thompson had said the first time. Jeffrey chose his battles carefully, and had the common sense to not argue in body-freezing weather, but at the moment he had an issue to chew and didn’t give a damn if his words froze midsentence.
“I need to go to Arctic Luck.” Hell, he needed a lot more than that. A hot drink, for starters. His throat felt like he’d swallowed a block of ice.
“Good for you,” yelled Thompson, marching away from him. “Say hello when you get there.”
Where was Thompson going? Jeffrey jogged a few feet to catch up, tripping and sliding over icy patches. “I demand you take me to Arctic Luck,” he yelled, his words escaping in plumes of vapor. “I paid to go to Arctic Luck.”
Thompson stopped, turned, and fisted his hands on his slim hips. “I, I, I! You big-city types never think of others, only yourselves.”
This conversation was taking a bigger turn than some of those insane plane maneuvers Thompson had made. Thompson, definitely no longer ruled the world. “My jacket is still on the plane. I need to get it.”
“Where on the plane?”
Jeffrey blew out another gust of vapor. “I left it on the convenience luggage rack with my carry-on, to be loaded onto the plane.”
“Convenience?” Thompson paused, then barked a laugh. “What’d you think? That some flight attendant would conveniently transport your stuff onto the plane? I don’t think so.”
“That jacket has my ID, my money—”
“Those fancy shoes of yours are gonna freeze to the ground if we don’t keep walking.” Thompson turned and started marching away.
Jeffrey glanced down, but only briefly. Better to keep walking than staring at his feet which might become one with the earth at any moment. He kept up a brisk pace behind Thompson. In the dense fog, he swore he heard the barking of dogs.
“Yo, Harry, over here!” Thompson yelled.
Through the fog, Jeffrey spied a line of dogs—looked to be twelve, maybe fourteen—hitched to a sled.
A beefy guy dressed in a regulation parka waved. “Storm’s on its way.”
Thompson stopped next to what looked like some kind of basket seat on the sled. Harry stood on board runners behind the basket.
“Get in,” Thompson ordered.
On closer inspection, the basket looked small. Too small for two people. “How do we do this?” asked Jeffrey.
Thompson made a sound somewhere between a grunt and a snort. “Now’s not the time to analyze options, city boy. Just get in.”
Harry laughed.
One of the dogs howled.
Jeffrey wished he were back in the plane. Suddenly it seemed far preferable to be risking death in the sky than death with a pack of dogs and two surly parka people. But as now wasn’t the time to be analyzing options or death, he swung one leg, then the other, into the basket and sat down.
Thompson stepped one jean-clad leg inside, then slid into a sitting position on Jeffrey’s lap. “Let’s go!”
A whip cracked. The dog team lurched forward, suddenly silent and all business. Harry yelled commands.
Thompson shifted, pressing against Jeffrey.
Before now, he had been stunned by the cold. Then by Mr. Toad’s wild plane ride. Followed by this adventure with a traveling dog team.
But nothing was as stunning as the feel of a curvy rump molded against his stomach and the undeniable roundness of a breast pressed against his cheek.
Thompson, he realized, was a woman.
2
THE DOG SLED PULLED UP in front of a rustic, oversize cabin and stopped. The lead Husky uttered a sharp whine of satisfaction and crouched low in the snow. Other team dogs started yelping and barking, some showing impatience with the restraint of the harnesses, some sniffing the air.
Amid the cacophony, the snow fell silently from a darkening sky in large, white flakes.
Cyd turned to Jeffrey. “Time to get out.”
But time played a trick on her.
It stopped.
Or maybe it had stopped minutes ago, somewhere on the sled ride from the landing strip to this lodge while their bodies had been molded together in this one-person basket. Yes, it had stopped then, wrapping the world around them, creating a place where only the two of them existed.
That’s when she’d tried not to notice how nicely his body conformed to hers. Tried not to admire his strength, or how his arm had wrapped around her, holding her close, as though protecting her.
Nobody, especially no man, needed to protect Cyd Thompson.
But she hadn’t budged from Jeffrey’s embrace.
And, if she were perfectly honest with herself, she still didn’t want to budge. Which irked her as much as excited her. Maybe it was because she was accustomed to fighting the elements and competing with the guys. Add to that her role as head of the household since her dad died, and Cyd Thompson was a one-woman force who bowed to no one.
But