Northern Exposure

“Gus is my niece.” Skye would never have guessed. She wasn’t seeing the family resemblance, but then sometimes that’s just the way it was.

“Gus trained in Paris,” Bull added.

Surely he didn’t mean trained? “Trained?”

“You know, got her degree from the L’Ecole Gastronomique,” Saunders explained, as if she were simple-minded. Skye appreciated good food but she’d never heard of the L’Ecole Gastronomique. Still, she’d rather lose a limb than confess that to the smug Saunders, so she nodded as if she was intimately acquainted with the cooking school.

“She trained in Paris and then came to Good Riddance?” Skye asked. This place was full of some truly odd people.

Merrilee and Bull exchanged a subtle glance which Skye almost missed. “She worked in Manhattan for a while before she came here.”

“She was working in Manhattan when Miriam sent her here.”

Bull chuckled, at least that’s what she thought it was, and shook his head. “She fell in love with the town her Aunt Merrilee had founded and decided to stay.”

Skye sipped at her wine. She wasn’t big on alcohol, but right now she really needed a drink. “How did that happen? I mean, it’s not every day that a woman wanders into the middle of nowhere and founds a town.” Or maybe it was out here.

“I’d been married for twelve years when I finally figured out it was a whopper of a mistake. Since I couldn’t kill him—well, I could’ve but I didn’t want to wind up in the slammer—I decided to pack my belongings and move as far away as I could and still retain my U.S. citizenship. Everybody thought I’d lost my mind. So I took our R.V. and started driving. I knew I’d know when I found where I belonged.

“One thing led to another. I took a wrong turn off the highway and stopped to spend the night here and I just knew. I knew I’d found the place for me. Word gets out in these parts when a single woman arrives and before long, other people started showing up. So there you have it. My ex told everyone I had a mid-life crisis but I was just finding where I belonged and it wasn’t with him.”

Skye nodded, but she was sure she hadn’t heard the whole story. It was just a gut instinct but a strong one, nonetheless. Gus arrived bearing plates as artfully arranged as any Skye had seen in the best restaurants. It smelled heavenly. After one bite, she knew it tasted even better than it smelled.

A rough-hewn timber building, a clientele wearing blue-jeans and work boots and a five-star quality meal.

Welcome to Good Riddance, Alaska.

4

SAUNDERS FOLDED HIS NAPKIN and placed it on the table next to his plate. “We’d better be heading out,” he said. “I’ve got an early flight in the morning which means Doc—” she wanted to throttle him every time he called her that “—has to be up early too. What time does Nelson get in?”

Merrilee dabbed at her mouth with the edge of her white linen cloth. “What time does he need to be there?”

“Six-thirty.”

“I’ll give him a call,” Merrilee said with a brief nod.

Even though this was about her, Skye was fairly clueless. And she didn’t do clueless. “Nelson?”

“Your assistant, dear.” Merrilee reached across the table and patted her hand.

“Ah. I see.” Actually, she didn’t see anything. It was as if she’d stepped through the rabbit hole. Nothing was as it seemed. She’d just had one of the finest meals she’d ever indulged in and now it was time to find out what else was in store for her.

She’d been dreading going to the cabin that was to be her home for the next two weeks. But heck, considering the meal she’d just enjoyed, it might turn out to be a first-rate accommodation—fluffy down pillows, five-hundred-thread-count sheets, a down mattress topper so thick you sank into the bed and never wanted to crawl out ….

“Are you okay?” Saunders interrupted her reverie.

“What?”

“It sounded like you moaned.” Was that a strained look on his face?

“I most certainly did not.”

He slid out of the booth and stood. “Let’s go. It’ll take half the night to get your suitcases in.”

Skye was ready. She’d been desperately aware of Saunders’s heat, the breadth of his shoulders and the proximity of his body throughout dinner. She grabbed her jacket and scooted across the wood seat while Bull and Merrilee watched in amusement. “I’d like to thank Gus, if you don’t mind.”

He shrugged into his jacket. “Make it quick, Shanahan.”

Wow, she’d like to smack him. Which was a much better idea than kissing him …Unfortunately, that crazy thought had gone through her head a couple of times over dinner. Instead, she said good-night to the other couple, then stopped by the kitchen, which was open to the rest of the room except for the separating counter. Gus stood at the stove stirring a sauce in a small pan.

“Thank you. That was wonderful.”

“You’re welcome. I saw you looking at Merrilee’s omelet. Want me to send one over to the office tomorrow morning for breakfast? I doubt you’ll have time to whip up much for yourself.”

Time or not, Skye wasn’t much for whipping anything up—she was something of a dud in the kitchen. She ate mainly take-out at home, she’d never had anything that compared to the meal she’d had tonight. “That would be wonderful.”

“I’d suggest chanterelles.”

Ah, the chanterelle versus shitake situation. Skye didn’t volunteer that she wasn’t a mushroom purist and wouldn’t know the difference. Instead she simply beamed at Gus and said, “Chanterelles would be lovely.”

“Sourdough or challah toast? I’m not making the cinnamon rolls until day after tomorrow. I’ll put one of those aside for you. There’s always a run on them.”

Oh. My. God. She might stay for the food alone. Perish that wild, errant thought. No food was that good. However, she was partial to the egg-based bread. “Challah, please.”

“Nelson makes a decent cup of coffee so you’ll be fine on that front.” Without missing a beat, Gus poured the sauce over the contents of the plate.

“Thank you.”

“Nice to have you here, Dr. Skye.”

“Er, um, nice to be here, Gus.” She realized she had no clue what Gus’s last name was. Not that she supposed it really mattered. Convention and ceremony seemed out of place here.

Saunders was waiting by the door, engaged in conversation with Merrilee. Her heart sort of did a trippy kind of thing, which once again, made no sense. He was no taller than any other man in the establishment. In fact there were quite a few who were taller and brawnier. He was dressed the same as most of the other men—blue jeans, flannel shirt and boots. But something made him stand out, stand apart, and sent her heart into arrhythmia. Or maybe she was just suffering a mild case of indigestion. She immediately mentally apologized to Gus.