Northern Fires

Dwight was eighty if he was a day. For years he and Jeb Taylor had been near-permanent fixtures in the Good Riddance airstrip office where they argued and played a slow-moving game of chess. Jeb had died last summer and now Dwight mostly sat there lost.

“You’re never too old for love … and he’s lonely.” She slanted him an arch glance from beneath her painted-on eyebrows. “I’d say you’re ready for love, too. I think you’re lonely, Sven.”

She was smiling, but there was a glint in her eyes, a knowing, as if she really could see somewhere deep inside him. It was a little freaky. Damn. Goose bumps popped up on him that had nothing to do with the weather. Actually it was a lot freaky.

In all their years of crossing paths, Alberta had never tried her hocus-pocus on Sven. And now she was as wrong as the day was long in July.

“Do I look lonely?”

A beat-to-hell-and-back Suburban drove by. Petey, the prospector who doubled as the resident taxi service, honked and waved. Alberta and Sven waved back.

Alberta focused on Sven, eyeing him consideringly. Despite his prickle of discomfort at her eye-balling him, he crossed his arms over his chest and laughed. Alberta was a trip.

“You look ready.”

“Ready for …” This was getting better and better. He was amused and curious as to what she was going to come up with next.

“You’re ready for a meaningful relationship, a commitment.”

Okay, so maybe he had thought now and again that it would be nice to have someone to come home to at night and maybe have a couple of kids, but he’d never admit it to Alberta.

Grinning, he shook his head. “Alberta, you are way off the mark.”

Her wide smile called him a liar. “No way, hottie. I’m never wrong about these things. You’re ready to find a woman to come home to and snuggle up with every night. Weren’t you just thinking at your father’s birthday celebration that you want what your brother has?”

Her words zapped a shiver of acknowledgment down his spine and wiped the grin off his face. How the hell could she know …? A month ago he’d gone back to Wasilla for his pop’s sixtieth birthday. Sven’s brother, Eric, Eric’s wife and their five-month-old daughter had been there, as well. Watching them interact had given him the funniest feeling inside, and yes, he had thought exactly that—he wanted what they had.

An image of darkly sexy Juliette Miller, one of Good Riddance’s bush pilots, had popped into his mind. He’d quickly dismissed Juliette and the notion.

He zeroed in on the one detail Alberta had gotten wrong. “I’m not a snuggler.”

Her expression was nothing short of smug. “You will be.”

Another shiver chased from his neck down his back. “I’m not one of your matchmaking candidates.”

“Oh, but you are. The problem is sometimes you men don’t know your own mind.” Damn if that wasn’t the same thing his mother and his sister-in-law said sometimes. Women.

“My mind and I communicate just fine.” Sven laughed. “There’s no business to be had on my end.” He so did not need a matchmaker. He did just fine with chicks on his own.

“For you, my services are free.” A sly smile lit her eyes and curled her lips. “And here comes the one for you.”

Sven turned. The small hairs on the back of his neck stood at attention. Across the street Juliette, her short dark hair hugging her head, a pair of aviator glasses hiding her eyes, was striding down the sidewalk. As usual, purposeful intent marked her every step. She was standoffish as hell. They’d managed to give each other a wide berth, which was kind of strange considering they were singles of the opposite sex. However, when a woman steadfastly ignored you, ignoring her in return became something of a game. It’d require a brave man or a fool to take on Juliette. He was neither.

He turned back around and faced Alberta. “I’ve got some sad news for you, Alberta. You’ve got this one wrong. I like my women uncomplicated and easy.”

Eyes gleaming, Alberta shot him a pitying look. “And look at where it’s gotten you.” She patted his arm. “You’ll see.”

Right. More like Alberta would see, because not just no, but hell no. Juliette Miller required way too much work.

“IT’S BROKEN.” DR. SKYE Shanahan pointed to the X-ray film up on the backlit screen that afforded a clear view of Bull’s left arm.

“Well, dammit, if that’s not inconvenient,” Bull grumbled from where he sat on the exam table.

“Inconvenient’s a whole lot better than dead,” said Good Riddance’s founder, town mayor, but most important, Bull’s wife, Merrilee Danville Weather-spoon Swenson. She was glad he wasn’t dead—and now she just might kill him for taking such a stupid risk. Climbing up on top of the roof to string Christmas lights in May….

“Now I’ve got to turn the set building over to someone else,” Bull said.

Merrilee simply shook her head. Honest to goodness, forget the pain of a broken bone, the man was upset because ever since they’d started the annual spring dinner theater six years ago, Bull had handled the set design. That was one of the things that had set her head over heels in love with him when she first met him twenty-five years ago: he was one interesting mix of a man. Tough as nails, he uncompromisingly adhered to a fitness schedule, bore a plethora of physical and emotional scars compliments of a stint at the Hanoi Hilton during the Vietnam War, wore his long gray hair pulled back in a ponytail, and had the talent and soul of an artist even though he ran a hardware store. At this moment, disappointment etched his face.

Granted, the dinner theater production was a big deal. It was one of those things that involved everyone. If people didn’t want to be part of the production, they could just sit in the audience. They’d all chosen to live in an area where entertainment was scarce, but forming a dinner theater had built on their strong sense of community and brought a creative outlet to lots of folks who didn’t have one otherwise.

“Sven,” Merrilee said. The tall blond builder wasn’t exactly a Good Riddance resident—yet—but he was the logical choice to take over for Bull. Plus, there was the Juliette issue.

“Well, he knows how to build,” Bull admitted, “but it takes some artistry, as well.”

“I’m sure he won’t be as good as you, but he does have something of an artistic bent, as well,” Merrilee said, understating Sven’s capabilities so as not to trample all over her husband’s already-bruised ego.

“You don’t say.”

From the khaki-green walls of the exam room, a giant yellow smiley face painted on the opposite wall beamed at them, in stark contrast to Bull’s hangdog expression.

Merrilee rubbed her hand over his flannel-clad arm—the unbroken one. “Just for this season, sweetie.”

“All right then. I guess you better go look into it before everyone’s freaking out that I won’t be handling it. You don’t need to stay while Dr. Skye puts on the cast. You know, Sven might not be able to handle all that comes with the job, if you know what I mean. Juliette has definite ideas about what she does and doesn’t want.”

It had taken some prodding and more than a little wheedling for Merrilee to rope Juliette into working on the set design with Bull this year. Juliette was pleasant enough, but she totally kept to herself. However, once Merrilee had dropped by the cabin outside of town Juliette rented and had seen all the wind chimes Juliette created, she knew the theater production was the perfect way to involve Juliette in the community. Juliette, still reserved for the most part, had taken to it like a fish to water.

“Juliette is doing a great job, isn’t she?”

Merrilee loved being right. Thank goodness she was most of the time, because when she was wrong … well, she did wrong in a big way. Plus, she’d thought for the longest time that Juliette might be just what Sven needed, but she’d had enough God-given sense to keep her mouth shut on that one. It was going to be ding-dang hard for Sven and Juliette to steadfastly ignore one another the way they had for the past ten months if they were working together on the set. Hmm. Merrilee wasn’t glad Bull had broken his arm, but most of the time things happened for a reason.

“Who knows? He might not even want to. If he doesn’t, we’ll figure something out.”

Merrilee didn’t want to further agitate her normally unflappable husband, so she held her own counsel. But she was ninety-nine percent sure Sven would be thrilled to be part of the production.

PROPPING AGAINST THE DOOR frame of the Good Riddance Community Center, her clipboard tucked under one arm, Juliette worried her lower lip with her teeth. She’d heard from half a dozen people as they’d filtered in that Bull had broken his arm—news traveled at warp speed in a town of less than a thousand. He was going to be fine, but now they were in a pickle with the set. She’d better come up with an alternative and fast.

The air hummed with excitement as a group practiced their lines onstage. Off to the right, Ellie Light-foot worked on altering a costume. In just a couple of months she would become Ellie Sisnukett when she and Nelson married. They were both quiet, but the town would miss them when they left for Nelson to go to med school.

From the lighting area, Tessa Sisnukett, the director, tested the spots and backlighting since the lighting guy, her husband, Clint, was on a guide trip. The sharp squeals of a group of kids playing a game of tag in the back of the room added to the mix.

Alberta, the Gypsy queen, had shown up two days ago and appointed herself the play’s special consultant, as they were performing a romantic comedy and Alberta specialized in affairs of the heart. Juliette hadn’t had any direct dealings with her, but she was slightly in awe of Alberta, whose reputation preceded her. Juliette had thought for one crazy minute about maybe asking for a “reading,” but had dismissed the idea just as quickly. Her life was finally on something of an even keel. If her future held a big nosedive, it was probably best to not know.

Alberta was plopped in a folding chair opposite Norris Watts who’d started up a monthly newspaper for Good Riddance and the surrounding area. Norris had approached Juliette about doing a feature article on her as a female bush pilot. Juliette had been nice, but firm, in turning her down. She didn’t want to think about her past, her ex-husbands or her parents, and inevitably a feature article would mean that kind of digging.

She’d finally learned to live in the moment and that’s exactly where she wanted to stay and what she wanted to focus on.

Even though it was pushing seven in the evening, daylight still filtered through the windows, turning Alberta’s red hair into a torch atop her head. Juliette wasn’t sure if she’d ever get used to the 2:00 a.m. sunrise and 10:00 p.m. sunsets that came with the territory. However, she wasn’t complaining. Spring and summer’s long days of sunlight were a welcome change from winter’s cold dark. Growing up in North Carolina, Juliette had always welcomed the change of seasons but never as much as now that she lived in Alaska.