Northern Renegade

“BB?”

It was simply embarrassing to admit she was allowing him to eat up her brain space. Nonetheless, Tansy nodded her head. They had dubbed Bradley, Tansy’s former fiancé, Bradley the Butthead or Bradley the Bastard, which she had subsequently shortened to BB.

“Yes. Stupid, huh? He’s just been on my brain this morning.”

Jenna’s blue eyes reflected sympathetic understanding. “I wouldn’t call it stupid. I’d call it human. You guys have been an item since junior high school. He’s the only guy you ever dated, the only guy you ever… well, you know. He inspired your column, your book. He’s been your past, your present and, you thought, your future. I think I’d be more worried about you if he wasn’t invading your thoughts.”

As usual, Jenna made her own kind of sense.

“Well, technically, you know he’s not the only guy I ever dated. Remember? We broke up for a while our freshman year in college?”

“You went out for pizza with one guy and the movies with another one. Once. That really doesn’t count as dating.”

Tansy stirred her spoon in her coffee cup idly.

“I guess.”

Tansy had met Bradley in seventh grade. He had been her one and only. Those couple of dates with other guys had been enough for Tansy. She and Bradley had gotten back together from then on. Last Christmas he’d asked her to marry him. They’d done everything right. They’d moved forward cautiously, taken their time, made plans… and look where they’d wound up—Splitsville.

Heck, their history had sort of spawned her career as a love advice blogger and columnist. And then she’d started a book, Finding Your Own Fairy-tale Ending, that had been bought by a publisher. The book was slated for a February release, just in time for Valentine’s Day, and now she was floundering because everything she’d thought she’d known about love and relationships had been turned on its ear with Bradley’s infidelity. Coming to Good Riddance had been a good move on her part as she tried to find her footing with both the book and her life.

“Coming here has helped,” she said.

Jenna had been totally enthusiastic when Tansy had proposed coming to Alaska for a change of venue. Plus, she’d been dying to meet her new niece, Emma. And there was the little matter of having to get this book finished.

Jenna offered a sage nod. “Yep. Good Riddance… where you get to leave behind what ails you. It’s all going to be okay, Tansy.”

Tansy and Jenna had been thirteen when their parents had married. The girls had formed a quick bond. Not only were they the same age but they both had parents who were addicts. However, rather than drugs or alcohol, their parents had been marriage addicts. Divorce always seemed to lead to finding the next “fix.” If there was such a thing as serial spouses, Jenna’s mom and Tansy’s dad, to a much lesser extent, were casebook studies.

Tansy and Jenna had shared a bedroom when Tansy spent time at her dad’s. Tansy had long ago come to regard Jenna as her true sister and her friend. Most of the time she didn’t bother with the “step” designation and simply referred to Jenna as her sister. Not surprisingly, their parents’ marriage hadn’t lasted more than two years—just long enough for the new to wear off—and then Jenna’s mom and Tansy’s dad were off to greener grasses. Jenna and Tansy had stayed in touch, and although there were inevitable ebbs and flows in their relationship, they remained close.

“I feel like an idiot,” Tansy said, impatient with herself, “wallowing in man-woes.” She had never been one to wallow.

“You’re not an idiot and you’re not wallowing.” Jenna’s eyes flashed. “You found a pair of panties—not yours—in your fiancé’s jacket pocket. And then there were the emails and the hotel receipt.” God, she’d been painfully stupid and trusting. “There’d be something wrong with you if you weren’t having days like this.”

Tansy supposed. Sometimes she did okay and then sometimes it was like this. It wasn’t even as if she was totally brokenhearted. She was just… pissed. Why tell her he loved her? Why ask her to marry him if he was going to be fooling around with someone else? Not only was the bastard wrecking her concentration, worse, he’d made her feel like a fraud. How could she offer up advice on love and relationships when hers had hit the skids and she was still a mess? She wrote a syndicated column, had a wildly successful webpage and her own love life was in the toilet? Small wonder she’d stalled on the book she’d been working on. She hadn’t lost just her fiancé, it had been a whole damn belief in something bigger.

Admittedly, she liked it here—actually she loved it here—and it was wonderful to be with Jenna and Emma, who was cute as a bug. But Tansy had made precious little progress on her book and felt bogus every time she wrote her column. “I’ll figure it out.”

“You will.” Jenna shook her blond head while she waved at someone across the room. “Coming here was a good thing. It would’ve been a million times worse if you were still in Chattanooga. We’re glad you’re here, even if you are in solitary confinement most of the time.”

Jenna’s husband, Logan, had offered Tansy the use of his new FJ Cruiser. Jenna had reassured her that Logan would never have offered it if he didn’t want Tansy to drive it. So, she was staying out at a little recently renovated cabin at a place called Shadow Lake. Outside of visits to her grandfather’s farm halfway between Chattanooga and Marietta, Tansy had never done remote. She’d always lived in the city. She found she rather liked it, especially as she drove in at least once a day for a meal at Gus’s or Jenna’s.

And while it was nice and tranquil, Bradley remained a thorn in her side… or brain, rather. And the clock kept ticking. She had two weeks to push through to the end and then it was time to head back home and deliver her book to her publisher. She was nearing meltdown mode. She put down her fork. The food was delicious but she’d lost her appetite. Tansy wasn’t one to stay down for long, which made this all so confounding and annoying. “The book has to be written.”

“I know. And it’s pretty hard to write relationship advice when your heart is breaking… or you’re still going through whatever.” Jenna patted her hand across the table. “It’ll all work out. Really it will. And I hate to run but I’ve got to get back. Nancy’s got an appointment and she only wants me, plus I need to check on Emma and her daddy.”

Jenna was one of those people who had been consistently underestimated. Even though she came across as slightly spacey—Tansy had even heard her referred to as a dumb blonde when they were in high school, which she had always quickly corrected—Jenna had a terrific head for business. In the year and a half she’d been in Good Riddance she’d started a small nail business, which had grown into a day spa, with her living quarters above it. Jenna was very much a hands-on owner and a seize-the-moment personality whereas Tansy was a planner and strategizer. Consequently, having things fall through with Bradley had totally thrown her for a loop. Maybe she should borrow a page from Jenna and be a little more open to spontaneity. Hey, she was here, wasn’t she and that had been a fairly spontaneous decision.

“I’m glad I’m here,” Tansy said. “It’s wonderful to meet you for lunch and be a part of your life… and spoil my niece.”

Although, three-month-old Emma Evangeline Jeffries rather scared Tansy. Emma was so little and perfect, it was almost frightening. And Tansy thought it was charming that Jenna’s husband, Logan, wasn’t just besotted with both his wife and daughter, but actively participated in Emma’s care. The CFO of his family’s mining firm, he made time to watch Emma while Jenna ran the day spa.

Sometimes seeing Jenna and Logan and their little family together made Tansy realize just how off the mark her and Bradley’s relationship had been, even without the panties in his pocket and the incriminating emails.

“Come over for dinner and a movie tonight. I’m not cooking.” Jenna laughed reassuringly. “Logan’s got the Crock-Pot fired up.” Jenna’s lack of cooking skills were legendary, both back in Georgia and now throughout Alaska. While Tansy simply didn’t like to cook, Jenna couldn’t seem to master it. Tansy smiled. “And we’re watching Tangled on DVD. You know you like that movie.” Tansy was a sucker for romantic fairy tales, as was evidenced by the title of her book. Now she didn’t know what fairy tale, if any, was in her future. “Maybe that’s what you need to lift you out of your writer’s-block funk. It’s a cute romance.”

It was sweet of Jenna to include Tansy but sometimes seeing Jenna’s little family just made the whole thing with Bradley that much more painful. That’s what she had wanted. That’s what she had thought she was getting. “Let me see where I am.”

“What you need is a good healthy dose of a real man.”

In a moment of spectacular timing, Rooster McFie practically crowed from his spot across the restaurant/bar/pool hall. The shock of red hair and beard weren’t the only aspects that had earned him the Rooster moniker. He had the most disconcerting habit of almost crowing when he was excited. Dear God, she couldn’t imagine what he must be like when he was in the throes of sexual fulfillment. Ugh. It was one of those things she really didn’t want to imagine but crowded into her brain regardless.

Truthfully, she was all kinds of open to a sweet, gentle knight showing up on a figurative white steed—yes, she was a hopeless romantic—but she simply wasn’t seeing that happening in a small town in the middle of Alaska.

“I’m not holding my breath.”

Jenna looked past Tansy, and a slow smile bloomed on her face. “Don’t look now, but I believe that man is just what the doctor ordered.”

Don’t look now had to be one of the worst phrases because it fairly begged you to do just that.

She looked… and couldn’t seem to look away as something hot and real and slightly dangerous seemed to slam into her and through her, leaving her breathless and shaken.

Tansy didn’t know who he was, but she definitely knew, at first glance, precisely what he was—tall, lean, dark, wounded, inaccessible and somewhere the other side of sexy.

She finally looked away, feeling flushed and disheveled, as if he’d touched her, run his fingers through her hair, brushed against her skin, marked her in some way.

She also knew exactly what he wasn’t. This stranger was definitely no gentle knight on a white steed.

2

LIAM SCANNED THE ROOM for Bull. Sixteen years wouldn’t render his uncle unrecognizable. Even though he wasn’t a tall or loud man, Bull Swenson was a man of presence. Gus’s was nearly full, though, so Liam continued to search the crowded room.

And then, suddenly he saw her midscan, across the room. The hair on the back of his neck stood at attention. Short dark hair. Glasses. Slightly round face. Average height. Lavender T-shirt. Her eyes locked with his.

It was as if everything slowed down inside him, the same way it did when he was about to take a shot. His heart rate slowed. His breath stilled for several counts.

And then she turned around and the rest of the room came back into focus. He wasn’t sure what the hell had just happened, but something had. He felt shaken and there was very little that shook his composure. It was as if she’d sighted him in her crosshairs.

He mentally shook his head, dismissing the feeling, and continued his scan. Bull. Four o’clock. At the bar.

Bull looked Liam’s way and without a word to the guy sitting next to him, stood. Liam met his uncle halfway. Bull’s handshake turned into a one-armed hug. “You made it.”

There was a whole hell of a lot that went unsaid in those three words. Bull wasn’t just talking about Liam arriving in Good Riddance. It was an acknowledgment from one soldier who’d survived combat to another.

“I did.”

“I’m glad you’re here. It’s a good place to be.”