EDGE (47 page)

He laid next to her, relishing in the act of holding her close to him, the wet of her clothes seeping into his. “We should really get you out of these wet clothes before you catch cold.”

“Want me naked, do you?”

“Always.”

“I don’t do naked alone.” Her voice, husky with the promise of dark pleasures, brushed over his skin.

“I don’t want you doing anything alone anymore.” He bent to kiss her.

When his lips were a breath away from hers, she said, “I won’t survive in New York.”

He paused. “Who’s going to New York?”

“Aren’t you?”

“Not to stay. I need to sell my apartment and pack my things. You’ll have to make room for me on The Edge because I’m moving in. Permanently.”

“Would you like company? When you do return to New York?”

The thickness in his throat returned. “I’d love for you to come with me.”

He nuzzled her neck, and she arched into him. It had been too long since he’d been with her. He stripped off her fleece blanket, throwing the wet fabric to the floor, and started unbuttoning her flannel shirt.

“Are you sure you’re going to be happy here? You haven’t seen a winter yet.”

“As long as you’re here to keep me warm, I can weather anything. Besides, I heard Linnet talking about spending some of the winter in Hawaii. What do you think? Sunning our barely-clothed bodies on some secluded beach when it’s too cold to breathe here?”

“Hmm, I think I could be talked into that.”

He spread her flannel shirt open and gazed down at her. “What else can I talk you into?”

“Kids?”

He pulled back and looked at her. A flicker of unease passed over her eyes as he took his time in responding. When he’d lost Sarah and Hank, he couldn’t conceive of ever experiencing happiness again. Yet here was Mel, with all she’d suffered, offering him all he’d ever wanted. “I’d love to have kids with you. Under one condition. You have to marry me first.”

She breathed out a sigh and smiled. “You sure you’re ready to be married to someone like me? I’m not easy to love.”

“Turns out I’ve always thrived in challenging situations.” He brushed the side of her face. His fingertips traveled down until they traced the tattoo of a phoenix she’d had inked there years ago, proclaiming her determination to rise above the ashes. “I love you, Amelia Bennett.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a wish rock. “I’ve wished for you. You told me that to keep the power in this rock, you had to share it.” He put it in her palm and closed her fingers over it. “Powerful thing, this rock.”

He found he couldn’t help waxing a little poetic after all. “I know our life will be like the waves on that huge ocean out there. Calm one day and stormy the next. It will tumble us smooth like this rock. I promise to be there with you, weathering it all.”

“That’s really sappy.” She sniffed and wiped away a tear.

“So is that a yes?”

She wrapped herself around him. “Yes.”

He hugged her until she complained that she couldn’t breathe. Then he loved her until she was breathless.

T
HE
E
ND

A PREVIEW OF

HOOKED

Tiffinie Helmer

P
ROLOGUE

She’d always known she’d die this way.

The strong tidal current dragged her farther into the unforgiving depths of the Bering Sea. She kicked and lashed until her limbs grew heavy, cold. Useless. Everything inside her screamed. She was too young. She had too much to live for.

She had to kill that fucking bastard.

Salt water burned and blinded. Filled her mouth and nose. Smothered and squeezed the life out of her.

She’d cheated this bitch of an ocean fifteen years earlier, but she knew she wouldn’t be able to again. She’d never been destined to live through the sinking of the
Mystic.

Pain exploded in her chest, and her lungs flamed with the need for air.

Blackness swallowed her.

C
HAPTER
O
NE

Sonya Savonski screeched her ATV to a stop alongside the dirt runway as the puddle jumper touched down. The prop airplane had just made the fifteen-minute hop from King Salmon to the small fishing village of South Naknek, Alaska.

“That was
not
a fair race,” Peter hollered, parking his four-wheeler next to hers.

“Only because you lost.”

“I’m towing a trailer,” he pointed out, tossing his head to the side, and clearing his eyes of dark hair. At seventeen, Peter hated to lose at anything.

“An
empty
trailer,” Sonya said. “It comes down to the better driver, little brother.”

The plane taxied toward them, the noise deafening. The engines thundered down and welcomed silence followed. A door opened, and passengers began to climb out. Most gazed around, not surprised by the wind-whipped banks, low-lying tundra, and the gray-green waters of the Bering Sea promising adventure, money, and possibly death. This wasn’t the tourist-friendly part of Alaska.

Fuel and exhaust mixed with salty sea air and the smell of fish. Call her crazy, but it was a scent Sonya loved. The scent of fish meant money. Hopefully this fishing season they’d get stinking rich.

“There they are.” Peter pointed to their grandparents as they stepped down from the plane.

Gramps chatted animatedly while Grams seemed to listen with rapt attention. Sonya knew that look. Margaret Savonski was woolgathering.

Peter rushed up to them, and Gramps’ face spilt into a grin as he grabbed him in a man hug. It had been weeks since they’d all seen each other. Sonya and Peter had headed out to open camp for this summer’s commercial sockeye season, knowing it would be one for the books—they were drifting
and
set netting this year.

Their nonconformist plan was bound to upset some fishermen.

Gramps greeted her with a bear hug. “How’s my favorite granddaughter?”

She responded with the expected, “I’m your only granddaughter.”

Nikolai Savonski’s dark brown eyes twinkled, and dimples cut deep grooves in his salt-and-pepper whiskered cheeks. A navy seaman’s cap hung lopsided over his thick wave of silver hair. He was a breed apart.

“Nikky,” Grams said, “you and Peter get the bags, while I say hello to Sonya.” Margaret, with her regal bearing, immediately had the men jumping to do her bidding. The sweet-as-sugar smile, which accompanied the request, had paved a long road of men bending over backward to fetch anything she needed. The woman had skills.

“Sonya, my girl, I’ve missed you.” They embraced, and Sonya breathed in the scent of English roses. “I’ve been too long in the company of men,” Margaret said, indicating Nikolai. He and Peter were powwowing with a group of fishermen waiting for the plane to be unloaded. “We must make time for some girlie stuff before the season starts.”

Girlie stuff on the Bering Sea of Alaska? They’d have a better chance locating an ice cream shop.

“We’ll make a point of it,” Sonya said, her attention snagged by Gramps who’d thrown his head back and let loose with a booming laugh. He was conversing with a sandy-haired man. The man had broad shoulders powerful enough to haul in a boatload of fish without breaking a sweat. Gramps motioned for Sonya to hurry over.

“Looks as though Nikky has another suitor to introduce you to.” Grams chuckled while smoothing her platinum—never gray—curls back from her face as the Bristol Bay wind puffed teasing gusts around them.

Sonya moaned and moseyed over to Gramps and Peter. For some reason, her grandpa had decided she needed to get married. She was only twenty-nine for heaven’s sake. There was plenty of time for that nonsense, but Gramps was bull-headed, so she went to be paraded in front of another “potential.”

“Sonya, I’d like you to meet Garrett…uh…what’s your last name?”

Great
. He was so desperate to get her hitched that he wasn’t bothering to screen the men anymore. For all they knew, this man could have murdered a string of women.

Peter turned his head to the side and snickered.

“Hunt,” the stranger supplied. “Name’s Garrett Hunt.” He reached out a hand for her to shake. “It’s nice to meet you, Sonya.”

Yeah, yeah, blah, blah
, she wanted to say, but then her attention caught on his ice-blue eyes. Eyes that color shouldn’t project heat. Somehow she found her hand happily engaged in his. It wasn’t just his eyes that gave off heat. A slight smile crooked his lips.

“Same,” she said, “to meet you, that is.” She gave Garrett Hunt a second look. The man wasn’t handsome…more interesting. Tough, muscled, and weathered. He looked like he could hold his own in any situation. Anywhere. Anytime. Chiseled jaw, sharp cheekbones, spiky military haircut, with a scar by his left temple. The only thing soft about him was his lips.

Dang, she did not need this kind of distraction this summer.

“Well, how do you like that?” Gramps commented with a hum, breaking Sonya out of her trance and reminding her of where she was. Gramps slapped Garrett on the back. “How about you join us for dinner tomorrow night? Red Fox Camp is about five miles down the beach. Can’t miss it. We should be ready for company by then, don’t ya think, Sonya?”

“Uh…sure.” Even though she wanted to tell her grandpa to keep his busybody nose out of her business, she couldn’t.

Garrett gave her that crooked smile again. It was quite sexy on him. “I’d like that.”

“Hunt!” the pilot of the plane hollered, walking toward them carrying a surfboard. “You have any idea how hard this was to stuff into my plane?”

“Thanks, Harry,” Garrett said, taking ownership of the board. “I appreciate you making the room.”

Surfboard?

“You owe me a drink for it,” Harry said. “I plan on collecting as soon as I get that swarm of fishermen flown over here.”

“You got it,” Garrett said.

Harry waved them goodbye and boarded the plane for the return hop to King Salmon. The fishermen were all coming in now that the fishing season would be opening in a few days. In that amount of time, the population went from around a hundred to thousands.

“What are you going to do with that?” Peter asked, eyeing the surfboard.

“Catch a wave,” Garret said.

The man was a nut. Gramps had to stop introducing her to just anyone. She looked at her grandfather and was glad to see that even
his
brows had risen in question.

“Why?” Peter asked.

Yeah,
why
, Sonya thought.

“For the thrill of it,” Garrett said with a grin.

“Nobody gets in that ocean for fun.” Sonya shivered. “You only get in it when you’re forced to.” The memory of the last time she’d been in that deadly ocean sliced through her like a cutting edge of an arctic wind.
The freezing water, the screaming, and then the terrifying silence followed by death.

“Well…hmm…hope to see you at dinner,” Gramps said, dragging Sonya back to the present. “Wait a minute, Garrett.” Gramps took another look at the man, as though sizing him up. “You military?”

Garrett nodded. “Former SEAL. You?”

Gramps’ smile stretched from ear to ear. Garrett had seen through the meddling grandparent to the seasoned warrior beneath. “Merchant Marine.”

“Combat?” Garrett asked.

“Vietnam. You?”

“Iraq.”

Nikolai nodded to the surfboard. “Well, being a SEAL explains the water toy.” He then offered his hand for Garrett to shake. “Very much looking forward to seeing you at dinner.”

Garrett shook his hand. “It was nice meeting you, sir.” He looked at Sonya. “And your family.”

Garrett pursed his lips and whistled under his breath as Sonya Savonski swaggered away from him, easily toting a duffel bag over her very capable shoulders. She wore a ball cap with a ponytail of dark hair hanging out the back. It seemed to tease him as it bounced in time to her step. She was garbed in faded jeans, and a t-shirt with a picture of a king salmon. The words, “Size Does Matter” blazed in red lettering across her ample breasts.