Alaskan Fire (9 page)

Jack seemed to sense her reason
for hesitation.  “I already told ya, Miss Blaze,” he said, his green eyes
softening.  “I’m not gonna hurt you.  Now fucking shake my hand and introduce
yourself ‘fore I just throw you back over my shoulder and dispense with the
bullshit.”  The gentle way he said it, Blaze realized that was this man’s
version of compassion.

Biting her lip against the
sickening dread in her stomach, Blaze squeezed her eyes shut and tentatively
reached out until her fingers made contact with something warm.

Jack’s hand suddenly engulfed
hers, and he held it gently, waiting. 

“I’m Blaze,” she whispered,
cringing as far into the wall as she could get.  She’d never been so scared in
her
life
.  Half of her wanted to dribble to the floor in terror, and the
other half wanted to just puke all over him and pee down her leg.

“All right, Miss Blaze,” Jack
said, still lightly-yet-firmly holding her palm in his, “I’m a good guy.  Know
it don’t look like it, when I change, but I really am.  I don’t hurt people, if
I can get away with it.  I’m pretty much like every other guy you ever met.  I
like to drink beer and tinker with shit ‘til it runs good.  We clear so far?”

“Crystal,” Blaze managed, through
the knot of fear in her throat.

“Okay,” Jack grunted.  He still
was holding her hand, encasing it in a fist the size of a grizzly bear’s paw. 
“We can help each other.  Our goals are basically the same.  You want to get a
lodge up and running, and I wanna earn enough so I can buy steaks regular.  You
get me?”

Blaze flinched at the mention of
‘steaks’, but seeing how he wasn’t releasing her hand and the cabin wall wasn’t
yielding at her advances, she could only swallow.

“So tell me about yourself,” Jack
continued.  “What are your goals for the Sleeping Lady?  And open your damn
eyes, woman,” he snapped.  “Am I hurting you?”

Every part of her trembling, Blaze
forced her eyes back open.

Jack peered up at her a moment
before he grunted.  “Okay, tootz.  Let’s hear it.  What made you run out into
the Bush and land in this ol’ wereverine’s backyard?”

“Why are you still holding my
hand?” Blaze whispered.

“‘Cause I’m trying to prove a
damn point,” he said gruffly. 

Blaze glanced down, saw her hand
where it disappeared into his, realized just how easy it would be for him to
break it off at the wrist and toss it through the window, and looked back into
his eyes nervously.

“You gettin the picture yet,
sweetie?” he asked softly.

She bit her lip and swallowed,
her heart thundering against her ribcage, every part of her wanting to squirm
backwards through the rough boards of the cabin wall to get away from him, but between
him and the wall, she was unable to move.  “I think so,” she managed.

“Okay,” Jack said.  “Talk to me. 
Where you from, what you doin, why’d you pick my neck of the woods?”

It took all of her control to
manage, “I’m from Anchorage.  Trying to build a fishing lodge.  And because it
was cheap.”

There was kindness in the man’s
face when he said, “Six hundred large ain’t really all that cheap.”

“It’s what I could afford,” Blaze
said.  “Most lodges are a million and up.” 

“So, what,” Jack said, still
keeping her palm wrapped in his warm, callused grip.  “You just wanna get it
back up and running as a fishing lodge?”

Blaze swallowed nervously.  “Uh. 
No.”

His gaze sharpened.  “No?”

“I wanted a farm,” Blaze
squeaked, suddenly seeing fingers flying across the room when the hammer that
was his grip came down on the anvil that was his palm.  She tugged back
slightly, but there was absolutely no give in his arm, and she had to swallow
down her terror or simply devolve into a whimpering puddle on the floor.  Babbling,
now, she added, “But I don’t need one, if it bothers you.  Really, I don’t.”

“A farm is a lot of work,” Jack
offered.  “Especially around here.”  There was no derision, no disgust, no
humiliating disdain.  Just a statement of fact.  And…curiosity?

Blaze held her breath.  Then,
tentatively, said, “I did a lot of research.”

“Yeah?” Jack asked.  He shifted
his stance idly, which moved her hand ever-so-slightly away from her. 
Immediately, Blaze had to fight down the insane fear that she was about to lose
her entire
arm
, not just a few digits.

“What kind of research?” Jack
urged softly, when she didn’t respond.

“How long are you gonna hold my
hand?” Blaze managed, eyes riveted to their joined grip.

“‘Til the damn conversation is
over,” Jack barked.  “Like I said.  Tryin’ to prove a damn point.  Probably falling
flat on my face, judging by the way you keep acting like I’m gonna rip your arm
off, but I’m trying.” 

“Sorry,” Blaze managed, biting
her lip.  “You’re scaring the crap outta me.”

Jack groaned and slapped his
other hand over his forehead and dragged it down his face.  Peering at her from
between his fingers, he said, “You’re missing the point.”

“Sorry,” Blaze babbled, cringing.

“Don’t apologize, dammit,” Jack
growled.  “Listen.  See this?  See how I’m
not
breaking your arm or
twisting off fingers or anything like that?  I’m doing my damndest to calm you
down, okay?  I feel somewhat guilty for being a shit earlier and I’m trying to
remedy this whole situation by showing you I’m not the boogeyman.  That said,”
he gave her a flat stare, “I’m not letting go of your hand until you’ve
convinced me you’re O.K. with having a wereverine as a neighbor.  Whether that
takes the next couple minutes or the next three days, I won’t be leaving you
alone again until you do.”

He’s serious,
Blaze
thought, instinctively trying to inch away.

Jack held her easily in place.  With
his other hand, he gestured at the woods in general.  “Tell me what kind of
research.  I know a bit about farming, myself.  You talkin’ pigs and chickens,
or you talkin fields of potatoes, or just a greenhouse, or what?”

Blaze actually felt a flutter of
excitement at the question.  “All of it,” she managed. 

He raised a heavy black brow. 
“All of it?”  No contempt.  Just curiosity.

The lack of mockery in his
voice—something that Blaze had dealt with from the very first day, sitting in
her father’s
lawyer’s
office, when the stuffy old prick had scoffed at
her casual mention of how she could now start a farm out in the Bush—gave her
the courage to continue.  “I want to raise heritage animals,” she said slowly. 
“Rare livestock.  Stuff that our grandparents used to raise.”

He snorted.  “I doubt
that’s
possible, but keep going.  Why rare stuff?”

“‘Cause the older breeds are more
independent,” Blaze said.  “They haven’t had their survival skills bred out of
‘em.  They don’t wander out and die in a blizzard ‘cause they’re too stupid to
step inside the barn that’s twenty feet away.”

“And the plants?” Jack asked.

“Non-GMO stuff,” Blaze said
immediately.  Then, before he could ask, she said, “GMO—it means Genetically
Modified Organism.  Something that somebody grew in a test-tube, by tinkering
with its genetic code.  Animals that glow in the dark.  Plants that have been
given the genes to produce their own
insecticides
.”

Jack’s eyes widened a bit. 
“They’re
doing
that?”

She nodded.  “GMOs represent
about ninety percent of all corn, soybean, and cotton grown in the US.  It’s
such a huge part of our food supply that just about everyone in America has it
on their shelves and doesn’t even know it.”

He squinted and wrinkled his
nose.  “That’s not good.”

“No,” Blaze said, getting
excited, now, “And the big GMO companies, they plant their crops right next to
the heritage farmers so it contaminates their crops, and then take them to
court saying they ‘stole’ their genetics, because the heirloom farmers use the
same seed as the stuff they grew to plant the next year, which is gonna contain
any DNA that was introduced from the neighboring crop.  They have basically
copyrighted certain sequences of DNA, and then they sic their nasty, overpaid
lawyers on the little guys to run off the competition.”

“The asswipes,” Jack commented.

“Yeah,” Blaze said, “The old
stuff is dying off, and we’re losing those genetics forever.  Stuff that took
farmers
hundreds
of years to develop,
poof
, it’s just gone.  I
read an article about a fava bean researcher that found a gal that had
seventeen fava bean seeds—seventeen—from a species he’d thought had been
completely extinct.  He actually managed to bring it back.”

“Fava beans,” Jack said.

“
Yeah
!” she cried,
gesturing.  “They’re real good for cold, wet weather, but most people have
never heard of ‘em because they’re
controlling
our
food supply
.”

“The pricks.”

“No kidding,” Blaze agreed.  “Like
most of America really only eats a single breed of each type of vegetable, when
there used to be hundreds.  Did you know there are
thousands
of
varieties of heirloom tomatoes?!  And you see, what, four types in the store? 
If you’re lucky?”

“Never been to a store,” Jack
said.

“See, that’s
cool
,” Blaze
cried.  “That’s what
I
want to do!”  She waved a hand at the window in
the general direction of the woods.  “So I wanna find some varieties that are
good up here in Alaska—did some research on that, but I’ve gotta test some
theories, first—and then basically grow enough stuff to feed myself, my
employees, and my guests.”

“Cut yourself out of the system,”
Jack agreed.

“We’re
already
off the
grid out here,” Blaze said, excitedly wiping her hair out of her face when it
fell into her eyes.  “Why not wean ourselves from the huge agricultural
conglomerates, while we’re at it?  They barge all that stuff up from the Lower
48 and it takes two damn weeks to get here, anyway.  Ends up all tasteless and
mushy by the time it actually makes it into the grocery stores.  And hell, we’re
just sending our money out of state, unless you go into Fred Meyers and buy Alaskan
stuff like carrots and potatoes.”

Jack was nodding, looking fully
enthralled, which only made her more excited. 
Finally
, someone who
understood
. 
Thank you, Jesus!

“So I figure, I get the farm
started this summer,” Blaze went on, gesticulating emphatically, “fix up the
lodge this winter, and have the place all ready for guests by next spring. 
I’ll start small, maybe only a few heritage breeds, something like chickens and
goats, maybe rabbits, and try to feed them as much as possible on the
surrounding acreage, and supplement that with a few bargeloads of grain and hay
from the farmers in Palmer—”

“You like to talk about farming,
don’t you?” Jack said. 

Blinking, Blaze realized Jack was
looking up at her with a calculating expression.  Getting nervous again, she
said, “Uh, yeah.  Why?”

He shrugged and crossed his arms. 
“Just an observation.”

“Well, yeah,” Blaze said.  “It
just seems so
wrong
what they’re doing.  I mean, people are eating
crap
. 
Stuff that isn’t even
real food
.  I mean, think about this.”  She lifted
a hand and started counting off fingers with the other.  “They’re turning
animals into machines.  They’re breeding them stupider and lazier and screwing
with their genetics.  They’re giving us hybrid fruits and vegetables that are
bred for their abilities to
withstand travel
, not for their taste.  They’re
bleeding all the nutrients out of the soil, so much so that people now have the
crazy idea that homegrown chicken
tastes funny.
  You know why that is?!”

“No clue,” Jack said.

“It’s cause they’ve got
vitamins
and minerals
in the flesh, instead of being raised in a cage, so damn fat
they can’t get up from the food dish.  You know that’s what chicken nowadays is,
right?  It’s all the same crossbred Frankenchicken.  Cornish-Rock.  They
finally hit upon the magic combo that switched their little muscle genes into
such high gear that they grow so huge so fast that most can’t even walk by the
time they get to slaughter at
five weeks
.  Tons of them die of heart
attacks, just ‘cause their tiny little hearts can’t pump blood through all that
muscle.”

“So what if I built you a farm?”
Jack said.  “From the ground up.  Whatever you wanted—barns, stalls, hutches,
greenhouse, fields to plant—we’d make it happen.”

Blaze felt her heart
melt
at the idea.  “Oh gawd,” she giggled.  “That would be so
cool
!  I mean,
I know
about
it, but I don’t have the technical skills to build a barn
or hell, even a chicken-coop.  I got all the plans, but really no way to
implement them.”

He was peering at her like she
had grown tentacles from her ears.  “You
really
like to talk about
farming.”

Blaze frowned at him,
breathlessly wiping more hair out of her eyes.  “How do you figure?”

He shrugged.  “I let go of your
hand about five minutes ago.”  Indeed, he was standing in front of her, arms
crossed over his brawny chest, eying her with obvious interest.

Blaze froze and glanced down at
her hand.  She’d been using it to gesture ever since her diatribe on the
agricultural conglomerates.  “Uh.”

“So,” Jack said, “Seein’ how I
got the technical knowhow, I
didn’t
rip your arm off, and you really
really
seem to want to have a nice little ranch in the woods, what say you we go back
home and draw up some plans?”

Blaze bit her lip, once more
realizing what the man claimed to be, and just how freakin’ scary that was.