Читать книгу That's Our Baby! - Pamela Browning, Pamela Browning - Страница 6

Somewhere over the interior of Alaska

Sam Harbeck would have given anything at the moment to be in sunny Key West bolting down margaritas and kicking back with friends. They’d invited; he’d refused. Which was why, instead of lounging around in swim trunks, he was capping off his first vacation in years by piloting a floatplane into a September snowstorm deep in the Alaskan wilderness.

Some vacation, he thought ruefully. A killer storm roaring out of nowhere, a decrepit plane hell-bent on shaking itself apart, a distasteful errand and, on top of all this, Kerry Anderson. She wasn’t expecting him, and Sam didn’t relish the encounter. Oh, she was gorgeous with that wild tumble of blond hair and those long shapely legs—not to mention thick-lashed gold-and-silver eyes whose unerring gaze knew how to pierce right through a man. But leaving out her spectacular good looks, there was something about Kerry that made Sam uncomfortable. And when she found out what he wanted from her, all hell would break loose.

Sam gripped sinewy fingers around the yoke of the Cessna 185 and forced himself to concentrate on the challenge of setting this baby down safely on Kitty Kill Lake. If he was anywhere near it, that is. To the north, summits of the highest mountain range in North America shored up the sky—had to stay clear of them. Somewhere to the west, a vast frozen river ground toward the sea: Williwaw Glacier. Its icy tongue split the land, its meltwater fed the lake below as well as the Kilkit River. Silverthorne Lodge was at the juncture of lake and river—God’s country.

But he didn’t see the glacier, the lake or the lodge. All he saw was dreary gray clouds concealing the glorious scenery of what Sam considered the United States’ last frontier. With its icy tundra, vast distances, untold natural resources and teeming wildlife, Alaska was big, bold and unlike any other place in the world. Sam liked to think that he was like the land—rugged, brash and untamed. A lot of people would have agreed with him.

No point in trying the radio; too much static. He peered out the Cessna’s window, searching for landmarks. A sudden blast of turbulence knocked the plane into a prolonged pitch and yaw. Cursing, Sam yanked back on the yoke to halt a sharp descent before he rammed in the power. Clouds fell away to reveal the snow-crested tops of trees and a dark slice of water. Ahead lay a curve of the river surmounted by a rocky bluff.

He fought to hold the plane level in the wind and tipped the nose up slightly as a swirl of snow across the windshield blurred his vision. Forget a clean approach; he’d have to make do with these less than ideal conditions. Adrenaline kicked in, the high he always got when faced with a dangerous and demanding task.

As he swooped low over the gray belly of the river looking for a patch free of rocks, he saw a downed tree spreading a tangle of limbs across the riverbank and into the water. He cursed again and tried to avoid the obstruction. Too soon he felt a thud of impact against the right float and strut. Something snapped, and a branch scraped across the top of the plane before the Cessna veered and hit the water with a sickening lurch.

It was a couple of minutes before Sam’s head cleared. The Cessna was upright, at least, but the right wing leaned into a tangle of vegetation. The left float was in place on the water. He climbed out of the cockpit groggily, sidestepped along the length of the float, and jumped across to the rocky bank before easing down on his haunches to assess the problem.

The plane’s right strut was broken, and its float had sheared off and lay on its side amid snow-covered boulders a few feet behind. The plane was skewed at an angle, its left wing canted in the air. Wait until he told his friend Vic Parnell that he’d damaged the plane. Vic admitted to a sentimental fondness for the Cessna, his first and only floatplane.

Sam straightened and brushed the snow from his shoulders before climbing back into the cockpit. He checked the Emergency Locator Transmitter, the ELT; evidently the plane hadn’t impacted hard enough during the landing to trigger the signaling device automatically. The ELT would guide search planes to him if anyone was monitoring. He flipped the switch experimentally. Nothing happened. He tried again. Nothing. Great. Apparently the battery was dead.

Jeez, if he’d known this would be the result of doing Vic a favor, he never would have taken off this morning. Sam kept his own planes in excellent condition, and this particular friend wasn’t ordinarily lax about safety precautions. However, Vic had been sick for over a year and was now recovering from an operation at his daughter’s house in Anchorage. Sam checked the survival gear and discovered that there wasn’t much. A roll of duct tape, a musty sleeping bag, a Mylar survival blanket, some canned food. No flare gun, no matches, no drinkable water.

Sam prided himself on being pretty good at flying by the seat of his pants, so not being able to use the plane’s radio hadn’t hampered him too seriously. As for the ELT’s being out of commission, that was a blow. Now Sam regretted taking off at all today. He certainly hadn’t expected a change in the weather, and snow didn’t usually fall in this part of the Country until mid-October.

Sam pulled a compass from his pocket and studied it. If he was where he thought he was, Chickaback Creek was to his right. According to the direction of the river’s flow and the compass reading, Williwaw Glacier lay to the north. Ditto Silverthorne Lodge…and Kerry Anderson.

There was nothing to do but strike out in that direction on foot. The Cessna, he noted glumly, wasn’t going anywhere. At least not until he repaired that strut and float. Hell, he could probably do it with the aid of chewing gum and a few paper clips, and the thought made him smile. It was what his old buddy Doug Anderson might have said.

He and Doug had prided themselves on being crackerjack fliers, and between them they thought they knew everything there was to know about airplanes. Except, sometimes, how to keep them in the air. Doug had died a year ago in a crash of the commuter plane he was piloting, leaving Kerry a widow and Sam with the possibility of becoming a father. But Sam was about to nix that option.

Sam saw now that ice was already forming along the river’s shoreline; not a good sign. He quickly scribbled a note to leave in the plane in case anyone should happen along and wonder where he was; he listed his destination as Silverthorne Lodge. Then he shouldered his pack and survival gear, checking carefully to make sure that the forms he’d brought for Kerry to sign were safe in their waterproof pouch in the inside pocket of his parka. Yeah, they were there, all right. If everything had gone according to plan, they would have been signed, sealed and delivered to the sperm bank in Seattle within the next forty-eight hours. It could still happen if the river doesn’t freeze, he thought to himself with a dark sense of foreboding.

His hunch told Sam that he’d arrive at Silverthorne Lodge shortly after dark. Despite the way this whole situation was shaping up, he couldn’t help but grin as he thought of Kerry’s reaction when she saw him, of all people. She’d never liked him, had considered him a bad influence. That alone was enough to spur him on across rugged terrain and through the blinding, blowing snow.

At Silverthorne

KERRY ANDERSON lay sprawled on the floor beneath the wildly swinging moose-antler chandelier and tried not to scream her frustration. Her finger, the left ring finger, was broken. She just knew it. Thank goodness she’d left Doug’s wedding ring in the wall safe at her friend’s house in Anchorage. There sure weren’t any jewelers around this neck of the woods to cut it off after her finger swelled.

Talk about stupid! She hadn’t been able to stand looking at the thick furring of dust on those moose antlers for one more minute, and against her better judgment, she’d climbed the first few rungs of a shaky ladder before it had toppled to the floor, taking her along with it. She’d better get an ice pack on her injured finger, and fast.

Kerry sat up and took stock of the rest of her. Fortunately her hand had broken her fall, and aside from a bruised hip, she was okay. But what if she wasn’t okay? Something else could go wrong, and she’d never forgive herself if it did. Experimentally she smoothed her right hand, the uninjured one, over the slight curve of stomach and abdomen. Nothing hurt, nothing cramped, and she drew a deep breath of relief.

She had planned it all so carefully: She’d stayed in Seattle until she could take care of business that had been postponed for too long, then she’d retreated to the lodge. In the three months since she’d been there, she’d accomplished a lot in the refurbishing of the eighteen-room building, but it had taken much longer than she’d expected, mostly because she sometimes got hung up on details. Like dusty moose antlers.

But the moose antlers were, well, picturesque and would lend an air of rustic authenticity to the lodge. That’s what tourists in Alaska paid good money for. And money was what Kerry needed at this point. Otherwise she’d never even contemplate opening her late husband’s ancestral fishing-and-hunting retreat to the public.

She couldn’t help sparing a thought for funny old Captain Crocker. He’d wanted her to leave with him on the last run of the River Rover over Labor Day weekend, and he’d called her a crazy cheechako, which was what Alaskans called someone new to the Country. The word came from the Chinook language, and it meant “tenderfoot.”

Cheechako or no, Kerry had blithely waved him away from the dock anyway. If he were here, she would have grudgingly admitted that he’d been right. She should have left when she had the chance. No one with any sense, particularly a cheechako, would camp on the edge of an Alaskan glacier with winter coming on. Now, feeling the weight of responsibility settling squarely on her narrow shoulders, she wanted to cry. She couldn’t, wouldn’t fail.

As soon as she could perambulate, Kerry dusted herself off and headed back to Silverthorne’s original homestead cabin, where she’d been living ever since she’d arrived. A light snow was sifting out of a milky gray sky, and the temperature had dropped drastically since lunchtime. It was only the middle of September, and it wasn’t supposed to be snowing yet. She’d been prepared for lots of rain, since she knew that it rained overmuch in Alaska. But snow? No.

As if I don’t have enough to worry about without bad weather, she told herself as she tried to ignore the stabs of pain darting up her arm. She was chilled to the bone and wondering if she’d made the worst mistake in her life when she’d told Captain Crocker to go back to Anchorage without her.

FOUR HOURS LATER, the pain in Kerry’s finger was horrendous, but a broken finger wasn’t her worst worry. The storm was.

The cabin was engulfed in a blinding snowstorm complete with a howling wind that shook it to its foundations. Kerry huddled drowsily on the couch nursing her finger with an ice pack, her favorite goose-down pillow cradling her head. She wished she had a first-aid kit, and somewhere upstairs was one of those medical advice books. But right now she didn’t have the energy to climb the narrow ladder to the loft to get it. She was exhausted, and sometimes she felt so queasy. And if only her finger didn’t hurt so much, she’d sleep. She closed her eyes, trying to drift away, making herself think of pleasant things, of happy times…

She awoke with a start. Her finger was swollen to twice its size, and the ice she’d packed around it had melted. No telling how long she had dozed; she glanced out the window and tried to figure out if the storm was letting up. No, it was as fierce as ever.

And then she saw it—a face at the window above the couch. It wavered in the flickering light from the kerosene lamp on the table.

Kerry jumped up with a little shriek, clutching the pillow to her chest. Was she dreaming? She didn’t think so. She must be having hallucinations from the pain. There could be no other explanation for such a frightening visage.

The face was distorted in the wavy glass and encircled by a big furry hood. The eyebrows bristled white with crusted snow. The nose was red from the cold, the jaw dark with stubble, and the mouth a wide gash uttering words that she couldn’t hear for the lashing of wind-driven snow against the windowpane.

As she stared at the apparition, it moved toward the door. She was seized with sudden irrational fear. She was alone here and at the mercy of anyone who came along, and she’d thought she was protected by the surrounding wilderness, by the fact that the closest human beings lived sixty miles away. Yet here was this stranger who was now banging loudly on the door. She hadn’t bolted it when she came in earlier; she had been in pain and thought there was no need.

Whoever it was scrabbling at the latch. In a panic now, Kerry threw her full weight, all one hundred and ten pounds of it, against the door.

Too late she realized that she should have armed herself with the poker from the fireplace. As the door swung open on rusty hinges, the sound of the wind was deafening. A snow-covered figure stumbled into the storm vestibule, the wind gusting hard against its broad back. Knowing that she had to protect herself from this unwelcome intruder, Kerry summoned all her strength and socked it as hard as she possibly could—

With the pillow. Which broke open and scattered feathers everywhere.

A cry of outrage drowned out even the howl of the wind.

“Hey, don’t you know me? I’m Sam, Sam Harbeck!” The figure ripped off its hood, and Kerry’s mouth dropped open in astonishment. She forgot, for the moment, her pain.

“Sam?” she said, her voice rising on an incredulous note. The intruder couldn’t be Sam Harbeck.

But it was. In those crazily disoriented seconds, she couldn’t imagine how Doug’s best friend came to be tapping on her window here in the middle of the wilderness during a blinding snowstorm, but it was Sam, all right. How could she not have recognized his square, stubborn chin, that sharp, straight blade of a nose? Even now, with wet feathers plastered in his hair and all over his face, he couldn’t be mistaken for anyone else.

A flurry of snow billowed into the room and mingled with the floating feathers on a burst of cold that almost knocked Kerry over. She dropped what remained of the pillow and struggled to slam the door, but the wind was too strong. Sam joined her in throwing his full weight against the heavy door, and together they managed to shut out the raging storm.

In the sudden hollow silence, Sam spat feathers out of his mouth, slung his backpack into a corner and peeled off his parka.

“What kind of welcome is this? I hammered on the door and yelled until I almost froze. Or is that what you had in mind?” His piercing blue gaze swept over her, taking in her mussed hair now frosted with feathers, the worn jeans, the red wool hiking socks with a hole in one toe. She stood gaping at him, unable to speak.

“You shouldn’t have dressed up,” he said, stomping clumps of snow off his boots and making a feathery mess on the floor. He threw the parka over a peg beside Kerry’s coat and strode through a few still-fluttering feathers to the kitchen area where he helped himself to a towel from the shelf over the dry sink.

“You forgot to shave,” Kerry snapped back, picking feathers from her hair, her sweater, her jeans. She felt perilously near tears; it was because her finger hurt and her favorite pillow was ruined. Or maybe it was because she’d been foolish enough to think that Sam Harbeck had the capacity to care about anyone but himself.

“I’ve been roughing it, camping out.”

“In snow?” Kerry said, heavy on the sarcasm. She bent to pick up the pillow. Its case was wet, and feathers were still falling out.

“It wasn’t snowing when I started,” Sam said. He wiped his face with the towel and tossed it into a basket under the sink before peering into the cloudy mirror beside the back door and brushing feathers from his hair. In obvious distaste, he poked at a pot of red beans she’d left on the stove after lunch and dropped the spoon before looking her over again from head to toe.

It was a thorough inspection, his gaze lingering on her face before sweeping the rest of her slight frame. It unnerved her, that look. She felt as if she were standing in front of him buck naked. For something to do, she walked over to the wood box and shoved the sadly deflated pillow in between the logs. She didn’t know what else to do with it.

“Whatever brings you to this neck of the woods?” she blurted. She held her injured finger in the palm of her other hand; it was throbbing painfully. Through her pain and astonishment, she had the idea that maybe Sam was checking on her out of a feeling of obligation to Doug. At that thought she felt a kind of absurd gratitude, but it evaporated as soon as Sam opened his mouth.

“Your friend Emma told me you’d written and said you were staying on here after the last boat of the summer came through. I couldn’t believe you could be so dumb. Why are you staying here in the cabin instead of the lodge?”

“It costs too much to run the electrical generator there, and the lodge is too big to heat. Anyway, the cabin is cozy. It suits me.”

“What ever possessed you to hang on at Silverthorne with winter coming on? With winter already here,” he amended, with a meaningful look at the storm flailing outside the windows.

“I had lots of work to do. I was in the middle of painting the dining room because I was running behind schedule when the River Rover made its last run. Captain Crocker is sending his son-in-law Bert to pick me up in his plane in a couple of weeks when he flies to the Indian village on government business.” She narrowed her eyes. “The captain didn’t send you instead, did he?”

Sam’s hair was coal-black and unruly, and now he furrowed a hand through it, which only made it wilder. “Hell, no. If anyone had asked me to fly all the way over here to pick up a cheechako woman who was enough of a nitwit not to head for civilization in the face of an Alaskan winter, I would have refused.” Like Captain Crocker, he’d pronounced it “cheechaker.” “Nope, it was my own fool decision to stop here. You should have left weeks ago. And if Bert’s planning to fly to an Indian village, which one?”

“To Athinopa. Captain Crocker said Bert wouldn’t mind stopping here.”

“He wouldn’t. If he heard about you, that is.”

“Why wouldn’t he?”

“Josiah Crocker habitually tosses his captain’s hat onto his bedpost on the last day of August every year and goes on a six-month drunk, that’s why. I wouldn’t count on Joe to tell anyone anything.”

“How was I to know?” Kerry said, feeling deflated.

Sam evidently took this for a rhetorical question because he picked a few feathers from his shirt and changed the subject. “You’re too thin. Don’t you eat properly?”

“I try,” she said evenly. For the first time she noticed that Sam Harbeck looked like a cross between Harrison Ford and George Clooney, heavy on the Harrison. He seemed to take up too much space in this small room; he filled it up. Kerry tried to inhale, but found that she couldn’t breathe. She grabbed the back of a chair with her uninjured hand and closed her eyes against the bevy of black dots swarming behind her eyelids. Meanwhile her visitor was pacing like a caged animal. An agitated caged animal, who was incongruously wearing the ubiquitous Alaskan bush boots. Feathers fluttered lazily in the air like snowflakes.

“Worse September snowstorm I’ve seen in many years. I was halfway here when it hit. I ditched the plane at the bend in the river where it meets Chickaback Creek. Do you have anything to eat? Anything good?” He cast a disparaging look at the pot of beans.

“I—um, well, I made goulash yesterday out of the last of the beef and was going to heat it for dinner. Anyway, beans are very nutritious. I cooked them with wild onions and chili powder. What plane?”

“It’s an aging Cessna 185 that I agreed to ferry back to Anchorage for a friend. Against my better judgment, by the way. Last week I had one of my pilots drop me off at Vic’s camp, it’s out Tolneeka way, and indulged in a few days of fishing. Where’s the goulash?”

She ignored his question. “What happened to the Cessna?” she asked. She was still trying to figure out what Sam was doing here.

“It was an emergency landing, and the plane’s not flyable. I guess the damage could have been worse considering the conditions. Actually I didn’t land far from here, but I had to walk most of the way against the wind. Is something wrong? You look like hell.” He tucked his hands into his belt loops and scowled at her. His brows were still damp and stood out from his face; a small scar cut through the left one. His mouth turned down at the corners; it was too generous to be considered handsome. Even as she noted these irrelevant details, Kerry couldn’t help thinking that there was something overwhelmingly, reassuringly masculine about him. She told herself that under the circumstances, she should be relieved to see another human being, any human being. Even Sam Harbeck. Even when he was saying uncomplimentary things.

“I thought rule number one was never to leave the plane if you go down.”

“Yeah, well, I’ve never been much for rules. I asked you if something was wrong.”

“I think I broke my finger,” Kerry said with reluctance.

“Let’s see.” It wasn’t a request, it was a command.

Reluctantly Kerry presented her hand, and Sam enveloped it in his larger ones as he studied it. He whistled. “That’s a lovely shade of violent.”

“Violent?”

“Violet. It’s a joke, Kerry.”

“It hurts too much to laugh.”

She could tell he didn’t like the looks of her injury. “What have you been doing for it?” he asked.

“Cold packs. I’ve been hoping it’s only sprained.”

“It looks like more than a sprain, all right. What were you doing, smashing your fingers with a hammer? You have no business trying to renovate that big old lodge by yourself. You should have waited until next year when you could bring in a crew of workmen.”

“There’s no money for workmen, and by next summer I’ll need paying guests. Doug didn’t leave me in great financial shape, you know.” She pulled her hand away from him, but he grabbed her wrist. His fingers were surprisingly gentle.

“Not so fast. Where does it hurt most?” His voice had lost its challenge and its banter now. Also he had ignored the reference to her finances, which Kerry thought was probably just as well. She didn’t want Sam Harbeck to pity her for her financial difficulties; everyone knew that he had built the small bush-flying service that he’d inherited from his father into Harbeck Air, Alaska’s biggest charter airline. Sam was worth millions of dollars. His remarkable success only underscored her late husband’s recklessness with money.

“I think my finger’s broken in the end segment. That’s where it hurts most. Hey, careful! Your hands are cold.”

“I’ll spare you the usual comeback.” His eyes now were surprisingly mischievous, a pale sparkling blue.

“‘Cold hands, warm heart?’ It’s not necessarily true.”

Sam ordinarily seemed to enjoy sparring with her, but now he was all business. “What’s true is that we’d better do something about this finger. Usually doctors don’t treat fractures in the end segment of the finger unless they involve the joint. Think the joint’s fractured?”

Against her better judgment, Kerry tried to wiggle her swollen finger. “It hurts so much that it’s hard to tell. I may have just jammed it. My hand took a blow when I broke my fall.”

“You’re lucky it’s your left hand.”

Kerry shook her head. “Not so lucky. I’m left-handed.”

“Well, what I’m going to do is tape your ring finger to the middle one. It won’t hurt so much if it’s immobilized.”

“Wouldn’t a splint be better?

“There are pros and cons. A splint decreases pain, but may increase joint stiffness after it’s healed. If we leave your finger as it is, the pain may last longer and chances are you’ll end up with a stiff joint anyway. Taping it to the adjoining finger is a good compromise.”

“How do you know so much about this?” she asked, watching him as he dug a first-aid kit out of his pack and withdrew a thick roll of gauze.

“I had a broken finger once from a sled accident. The doctor explained the alternative treatments to me.”

His touch was sure and gentle as he bound her ring and middle fingers together with gauze, and he stood so close that his face was only inches from hers. She inhaled the welcome warm male scent of him, a combination of leather, wood smoke, musk and something indefinably exciting. He smelled of the outdoors, of melted snow and a raw wind and, too, of the river.

What he was doing to her finger was painful, and she forced herself not to flinch. Instead she would trust, and that wasn’t easy. She had come to depend on no one but herself long before Doug died. Even as she was thinking how nice it might be to be comforted and cosseted, to have someone to take care of her, Sam’s eyes met hers.

She instantly felt a jolt. Not just a mental one, but a physical one, too, as if a current of electricity pulsed from one to the other. Where it originated, in her or in him, Kerry couldn’t have said, nor did she know if it was conducted from his hand to hers or over the brilliantly charged space between them. It unnerved her and made her want to yank her fingers away, and yet she couldn’t move. Couldn’t stop looking at him, into him, wondering if he too felt something. Felt—what? They had never much liked each other.

This reality check gave her the strength to look away. It was too intimate, that blistering brief moment of eye contact and this electrifying physical closeness. While she was contemplating her own embarrassment, Sam dropped the adhesive tape into her free hand.

“Here, hold this,” he said abruptly. He ripped a piece off the roll and wound it around her fingers. If he noticed anything amiss, he gave no sign.

“What medicine are you taking for the pain?” he asked.

“None,” she replied, striving to keep her tone even. “I didn’t bring any, and there weren’t any medical supplies here.” Did she sound normal? No. But maybe she sounded normal enough to fool him.

“I’ll see if I have something.” Sam rummaged in the first-aid kit and produced a small white envelope. “It’s not much, but it’ll have to do.” Sam shook out two acetaminophen. “Take them,” he said. “You’ll be more comfortable after it kicks in.”

Without comment, Kerry picked up the glass of water she’d set on the table next to the couch and swallowed the pills. She definitely did not feel like herself. The day had been a strain, and she’d been working hard for weeks with no respite. And here was Sam, and she didn’t know why he was here, and her finger hurt worse than anything she could imagine.

“Didn’t you hear what I said?” Sam was wrinkling his forehead at her. He really had such a noble forehead, so wide. And the way that one curly lock of hair fell across it was charming.

Charming? Sam Harbeck was anything but charming. I may have broken my finger, but falling off a ladder hasn’t made me lose my mind, she thought just as Sam grasped her around the shoulders. She struggled to push him away, but he said, “You look a little woozy. Here, let’s ease you down on the couch,” all the while holding her so close that she actually felt the muscles ripple across his chest.

“Now sit down and put your feet up,” he said close to her ear.

“I’m all right, leave me alone,” she replied weakly.

He snorted. “I’m not going to have you dropping in your tracks, at least not until I clean the water and feathers off the floor.”

“I’m all right,” she repeated, but he knelt beside her and studied her while his face kaleidoscoped into several Sams, all of them wearing the same expression of concern.

“I’m going to pull this blanket up over you, and you can lie back and watch me work.” Sam settled the striped wool blanket across her as Kerry allowed herself to sink back on the couch cushions.

“How do you feel?” he asked. Absently he reached over and plucked a feather from her hair; he sat looking at it thoughtfully.

“Lousy,” she mumbled. She wondered if Sam was aware of how endearing he was when he was being kind.

“Great. We should have that finger x rayed, you know. But the nearest x-ray machine is in Anchorage, over three hundred miles away.” He tucked the feather in his pocket.

“Believe me, the same thought has occurred to me. Go away, Sam. Let me suffer in peace.” This dramatic utterance brought a derisive hoot from Sam.

He stood up. “As long as you can talk, I know you’re fine,” he said dryly.

How could she have found his behavior endearing only moments ago? He was making fun of her. “Go on,” she said, pushing at his knee. His jeans were wet from being out in the snow.

After one last exasperated glance at her over his shoulder, Sam went to the supply closet and dug around amid the welter of old brooms, battered skis and bent buckets until he produced a mop.

“Too bad there’s no electricity in the cabin. A vacuum cleaner would come in handy for these feathers.”

“D’you know how to use that?” Kerry said thickly as he began to wield the mop.

Sam paused and indulged in an amused chuckle. “My first job at my Dad’s airport was janitor,” he said.

“Oh,” she said, but she couldn’t help recalling the time she and Doug had flown into that very airport and visited Sam in his plush office, where he was ensconced behind an enormous mahogany desk while he fielded telephone calls from all over the world. Afterward they’d glided in Sam’s Mercedes sedan to his elegant house in exclusive Turn Again by the Sea. The house was an architectural marvel overlooking an arm of Cook Inlet, where his houseman served them a gourmet’s dinner of grilled Alaskan King salmon and wild rice sauted with roasted pine nuts.

It was hard to reconcile that image of Sam with the slightly rakish and unshaven man who was so vigorously mopping the wide planks of the cabin floor and stirring up drying feathers. She watched him through half-closed eyes as he worked, admiring in spite of herself the swift power of his movements and his attention to the task. When he had finished mopping and stowed the mop in the closet, he said, “That’s about the best I can do, so now I’m going to shuck these wet clothes. Close your eyes.”

One thing about Sam Harbeck—he certainly knew how to get a girl’s attention. Kerry roused herself to object, pushing herself to a half-sitting position and regarding Sam with what she hoped would pass for outrage.

“You could step out to the shed to change,” she pointed out. “Or go up in the loft.” Those were the only two possibilities for privacy. The cabin consisted of only one twelve by eighteen-foot room with a loft built above the kitchen section.

“I’m not going anywhere. The shed is too cold and the loft ceiling is only five feet high and slanted, which would require that I change clothes in a crouch.”

“What’s wrong with changing clothes in a crouch?” Kerry said for the sake of getting an argument going.

“Since I’m over six feet tall, I’d end up with a crick in my neck or worse. It’s your choice. You can watch me as I expose my shivering male body to your eyes—or not. I’ll leave it up to you.” Sam was maddeningly arrogant, but that was nothing new.

The worst thing was that Kerry couldn’t think of anything at all to say in response. She caught only a glimpse of that devil-may-care grin of Sam’s as he turned and reached into his pack to withdraw neatly folded jeans. As if to underscore his own outrageousness, he tossed a pair of black male briefs to the floor where they lay in all their skimpy glory.

“I don’t want to see anything shivering or naked,” Kerry blurted with all the conviction she could muster at the moment, and Sam laughed when he saw where she was looking.

“I thought so. Don’t worry, I’ll sound the all clear when I’m decent.” He was already unbuttoning his shirt.

Kerry closed her eyes, tight. She heard the clomp of Sam’s boots as they fell to the floor followed by the whisper of sodden jeans against flesh and the dull muffled thud as they fell. Telltale sounds reported that Sam was pawing through his pack; he tossed some things onto the floor, humming to himself.

“I could have sworn I stuck a wool flannel shirt in here,” Sam mused. More digging. More humming. At last Kerry couldn’t stand it anymore and opened her eyes to a slit so that she could peer from beneath her eyelashes for a peek.

He stood in the middle of the cabin facing her, light from the kerosene lamp playing over his well-muscled body. She’d never considered Sam Harbeck good-looking; he was too rawboned and rugged for her taste. But it was all she could do not to gasp at the magnificence of his commanding physique.

His shoulders were broader than she’d remembered. Not that she ever had reason to think about them, but if she had, she’d have assumed that they’d be average. They weren’t. And their width emphasized a tapering torso thickly furred with springy black hair all the way down past his navel to a taut, rock-hard abdomen. And below that…

She closed her eyes again, and fast. Generally speaking, she wasn’t the least bit interested in men’s anatomies, and certainly not in Sam Harbeck’s. Yet the image of that stray lock of black hair falling over his forehead, the lamplight shading the hollows and curves of his utterly masculine body, seemed burned upon the inside of her eyelids. The shape of him, the details of him, wouldn’t go away.

Sam’s fresh clothes weren’t the only thing that was dry; her mouth might run a close second. She swallowed hard, but didn’t dare peek. Her memory of the way he’d looked was bad enough.

“Mission accomplished,” Sam said after what seemed like an eternity. “I’m ready to stand inspection.”

She didn’t look. She didn’t want to encounter those keen blue eyes, sharp as daggers. She didn’t want him to discover in her own eyes what she was afraid he’d detect. She’d never liked Sam, and she wouldn’t give him anything he could use against her.

“I’m really very tired,” she said, which was true.

“You might as well go ahead and relax. I’m going to pitch a couple more logs into the stove and nab some chow.”

“Mmm,” Kerry replied, hoping she sounded sleepy. She needed time to figure out Sam’s motive for being here, and yet she could hardly think. Not only was she still in pain, but she knew now that she shouldn’t have looked at him undressed. Doug had been dead for over a year, and she tried not to dwell on how much she missed the sexual aspect of marriage. Seeing Sam had made her think about it again, and life was hard enough without lingering on thoughts about all she didn’t have.

Sam, by this time, had discovered the pot of goulash and was stirring it on the stove. He seemed at home in a kitchen and found dishes, flatware and mugs without having to ask where they were. Of course he’d be comfortable here, she thought. Sam and Doug had come here many times together, usually for their ridiculous once-a-year, no-women-allowed male bonding experience.

Kerry had never figured out why, the whole time they’d been married, Doug had felt that he had to leave her behind while he disappeared into the wilderness every year to squander a whole week’s precious vacation. She’d always thought it was so he could grow a beard and refuse to take a bath for seven days but, even so, she still didn’t understand how beard stubble and the lack of bathing promoted male friendship.

She opened her eyes and saw that the pot on the stove was steaming alarmingly. “Careful, or you’ll burn that goulash,” she warned.

“Nah,” Sam said, not seeming to notice her waspish tone. He slid the pot from the burner and ladled the hot meat and noodles onto two plates.

“I didn’t say I want any,” she told him.

“Doesn’t matter. You’ve got to eat. If you don’t feel like sitting at the table, I’ll bring this over to the couch, and you can eat there.”

“With one hand mostly out of commission? No thanks. I’ll join you at the table—if you’ll remember that I’m a lefty and ignore my clumsy attempts to eat with my right hand. And don’t expect brilliant conversation. It’s been a long day.”

“I don’t expect conversation at all. Come to think of it, last time I sat down to dinner with you, you got up, flounced into the bedroom and slammed the door. It pretty much ended small talk.” He shot her a look out of the corners of his eyes.

She didn’t like that look, but countering it was far from her first priority. She stood up, gingerly shifted from one foot to the other to see if her knees worked, and when they did, she wobbled over to sit at the table. In the process she tried to make up her mind if Sam’s last accusation merited a response. Finally she said as coolly as she could, “The incident you’re referring to happened four years ago, and you had come to visit Doug and me in Seattle. And you took the money I’d been saving for a bang-up anniversary celebration weekend and wouldn’t give it back.”

Sam leaned over the table, his eyes dancing. “I won that money fair and square from you and Doug in a poker game after both of you insisted that you could beat me. A bet,” he said pointedly, “is a bet.” He went back to the stove and brought her a plate of goulash.

“A bet may be a bet, but because of it Doug and I had to stay home for our wedding anniversary, when I’d been counting on a lovely weekend in the Napa Valley complete with a room at a picturesque inn overlooking the vineyards, complementary wine and a heart-shaped Jacuzzi. Some friend you were, Sam.”

“You were the one who turned down the chance to play strip poker.” He yanked out his chair and sat, regarding her with uplifted brows.

This made her indignant. “We were joking about it, sure, but neither Doug nor I would have—”

“That’s why we played for money instead. I hate sore losers.” Sam shrugged and dug into the goulash. “Say, this is good.”

If there was one thing she couldn’t stand, it was Sam’s cockiness. He thought he was God’s gift to women. No, to the whole world. She forgot to concentrate on eating, and noodles slipped from her fork. Then she lost her grip and the fork fell to the floor with a clatter. Sam raised his eyebrows and went on eating.

She pushed away from the table and stood up. “I don’t think I’m hungry,” she said.

He stared at her blankly. “What is this, some kind of grandstanding for attention? I’ll pick up the fork. Also the noodles. So sit back down.” He got up and cleaned up the mess.

“Grandstanding? Is that what you think I’m like?”

“You don’t need to get all upset,” Sam said in a reasoning tone. “Come on, sit down, you’re making me uncomfortable looking down my throat while I eat. There’s nowhere to go anyway.” He sat down again.

In the past, Doug had acted as a buffer between Sam and Kerry. Suddenly Kerry missed Doug so much that tears welled in her eyes. She wanted nothing so much as to scramble up the ladder to the loft and curl up on the narrow cot there, preferably in the fetal position. But Sam would probably call such an exit grandstanding. She sat.

“There’s nowhere to go, all right. That’s nothing I didn’t already know,” she said heavily. Tears blurred her vision, and she blinked them away, but not before Sam skewered her with a keen but not unsympathetic look.

“Why don’t you go stay with your parents in La Jolla?”

“They offered to send me a ticket, but I had work to do here.”

He started to scoff at that, but she interrupted. She’d already lowered her guard. She saw no point in lying and, moreover, she thought Sam might as well know how things stood. “My lease on the Seattle house expired, and coming to Silverthorne gave me a place to stay over the summer. I’d already had the idea of opening the lodge to the public. I’m counting on this place to provide me with an income next year and I’m going to need every penny of it.”

After a long silence Sam cleared his throat and said slowly, “I advised Doug not to invest in that avocado farm near San Diego. He wouldn’t listen.”

Kerry managed a shrug. “Both of us trusted friends who painted a too-bright picture of how well it would pay off. By the time we pulled out of the venture, our money was gone.”

“I thought you’d managed to save some before he died.”

“We had other expenses,” Kerry said, thinking of the pricey fertility workup that she and Doug had undergone when she didn’t get pregnant on schedule as they had hoped and planned. All their remaining funds after the avocado-farm disaster had gone to pay the clinic.

She drew a deep breath. “Anyway, Doug and I thought we’d have time to rebuild a nest egg, but then he died. I paid off our debts with most of the insurance money, and there’s not much left over. Silverthorne Lodge is one of the few assets I have left. Either I make it pay or I sell it.”

“Opening it to tourists is another gamble,” Sam pointed out.

Kerry’s chin shot up. “I’ll make it work. I will!”

Sam grinned. “I’m not saying you won’t. But you can’t stay here now. It’s too late in the year to be up here in the wilderness.”

“I still have to strip the wax from the floors in the dining room, I wanted to put the finishing touches on the upstairs bedrooms so there won’t be anything to do but make the beds when I come back in June, and—”

“You’re leaving when I do. I thought I made it clear that you can’t count on Bert. How much work can you get done with a broken finger anyway?”

“A lot,” Kerry said hotly. As she spoke her finger began to throb again. “Anyway, I thought you said the Cessna’s not flyable.”

“I can fix it.”

“If you think I’m flying out of here in a plane that’s missing a strut and a float, you’ve got another think coming.”

“Is that so?” Sam leveled his fork at her. “Well, let me tell you this. I don’t want to be responsible for what happens to you if Bert doesn’t show up.”

“You could talk to him when you get to Anchorage, remind him to stop for me.”

“And what if the weather is so bad he can’t make it for weeks? Don’t be ridiculous.”

“I’m not any such thing!” Kerry shoved back from the table and winced when her finger hit the edge. She gripped her smarting finger and glared at him. “Why repair the plane at all? Someone’s got to come looking for you, don’t they? When you don’t show up back in Anchorage on time?”

Sam stood abruptly and stalked to the window. He stared out at the blackness beyond the pane; it rattled with the force of heavy gusts. Windblown snowdrifts furled around the tree trunks outside, and the view of the river was obscured by eddying snow.

“I didn’t file a flight plan, Kerry. Nobody knows that I left Vic’s camp and came here.”

Kerry froze. “And you think I do dumb things? Listen, Sam, everyone knows you’re supposed to file flight plans. Including you.” She paused as their situation sank in. “You’re telling me that no one is going to be looking for you. They’ll think you’re still at the camp.”

“For a while, at least. And the Cessna’s ELT isn’t working. Its battery is dead.”

She closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them. “Aren’t ELTs supposed to be checked every so often to make sure they’re in operating condition?”

“Every two years. Vic keeps the plane at his camp and evidently hasn’t paid much attention to safety since he’s been going round and round with this illness of his. I didn’t know that when I agreed to fly the plane to Anchorage for him.”

“How about the radio?”

“It’s not much use with the mountains blocking transmission. I’ll try it again tomorrow.”

Kerry didn’t think Sam sounded too hopeful. “Well,” she said lamely, “maybe the radio’s signal will at least reach Athinopa. They could relay the message to the rescue people.”

Sam was silent. “Another thing we don’t know is what this weather will do,” he said after a time, his words carefully measured. “If the river freezes, no float plane will be able to get in or out of here until after the ice breaks up in the summer. The same thing goes for a boat.”

“The only way in and out of this place in the winter is by dogsled or helicopter, and those possibilities are closed to us until Search-and-Rescue gets on the case, right?”

“Right. As soon as the weather clears, I’ll start repairing the plane. It’s our best hope.”

“How much do you have to do to it?”

“I told you. Repair the strut, attach the float.”

“That sounds like more than you can do with two-inch duct tape.”

“Doug kept a good set of tools in the shed.”

“They’re still there, but repairing a strut and attaching a float sounds like a serious job.”

Sam turned back toward her, his gaze level. She thought she detected a glint of worry behind his eyes.

“The thing I’m most concerned about is the weather. There are ice crystals already forming along the riverbank. If the river freezes solid before we get airborne, we’re stuck here. Maybe for a long time.”

Kerry felt a sharp stab of foreboding. “How long does it usually take for the river to freeze?”

His short laugh was entirely without humor. He gestured with a curt nod at the blustery scene on the other side of the window, and his expression was grim.

“Depends. I’d say there’s a good possibility that within a day or so we’ll be able to stroll all the way to Anchorage right down the middle of the river, wouldn’t you?”