Love Came Just in Time (36 page)

But there were times when he wondered if Southern California wouldn't have been wilderness enough. He suspected a ramshackle house on the beach would have been a great deal easier to manage than his rented cabin with its accompaniment of deer, bears, and other sundry and perilous wildlife.

He sighed deeply, then tromped across the mud and up the worn steps to the general store. Smith's Dry Goods and Sundries seemed to be the precise center of whatever hubbub was going on in Flaherty, Alaska, population three hundred. The store was the gathering place for anyone who was anyone to discuss everyone else. Sam suspected he'd had his share of space on the gossip docket. He opened the door and stepped inside, avoiding the rotting floorboard near the door. No, sir, he wasn't going to put his foot through that twice in a lifetime. He wasn't a greenhorn anymore.

He ambled over to the counter and nodded to the usual locals holding court next to the woodstove, chewing the fat and their tobacco. Sam pulled out his neatly made supply list and handed it to Mr. Smith, the proprietor. It was a lean list, of course, because he was still living on the proceeds from a couple of articles he'd sold to a cooking magazine. He was beginning to wonder now if he would have been better off to have traded out for six months of groceries.

A throat near the stove cleared itself, coughed, then hacked into the brass spittoon. “Yer the writer fella?”

Sam identified the speaker as an old-timer he'd never met before, a grizzled man who probably hadn't had a haircut since World War II.

Sam nodded, smiling slightly. “That's right.”

There was a bit of low grumbling. There was always low grumbling after he admitted to his vocation. Since he didn't like to hunt, fish, or chew, he had left the Clan very unimpressed. Sam would have liked to point out to them that his great-great-great-grandfather had come across the sea and cut a swath through Colonial America that even the Clan would have been impressed by, but then he might have been questioned about his own deeds and he didn't dare admit the kind of soft life he'd left behind in New York. He suspected that in Alaska lynching was still an acceptable means of population control.

“Heard yer up at the Kincaid place,” another bearded octogenarian demanded. “That right?”

“That's right,” Sam agreed.

The grumbling rose in volume until it reached outraged proportions. The spokesman rose and stomped to the door.

“Just ain't right,” he growled. “It just ain't right.”

The rest of the group departed after giving Sam disapproving looks. Sam looked at Mr. Smith, an older man with a merely rudimentary sense of humor.

“What did I say?

Mr. Smith shrugged. “Reckon you'll find out soon enough.”

Sam wondered if that could possibly be anything he would want to investigate further. Then again, forewarned was forearmed. He took a deep breath.

“Care to translate?” he asked.

Mr. Smith shook his head. “Better to let you find out for yourself.”

Sam leaned against the counter and tried not to let the ambiguity of that statement unnerve him. With the way things were going, finding out for himself could be downright dangerous.

The door behind him opened and shut with a bang.

“Joe, when are you going to get this damned floorboard fixed?”

Well, now the sound of
that
voice was almost enough to make all the misery of the past three months worth it. Sam leaned heavily on the counter while his knees recovered. It was a voice straight from his most favorite lazy Saturday-morning dreams, the voice that belonged to his warm and cuddly football-watching partner. He was tempted to whip around immediately and make sure, but he resisted. Surely the sight that awaited him was even more luscious than the sound of her voice. Better to let the anticipation build for a bit. Sam closed his eyes and gave free rein to his imagination.

Maybe she would be a Nordic type, with legs up to her ears and pale hair streaming down her back. Or perhaps she was a brunette, petite and lovely with a mouth just made for kissing. A redhead? Sam considered that for a moment or two, wondering just what kind of fire a redhead could really produce when put to the test. One thing was for sure: Whatever awaited him had to be a ball of sultry femininity, no doubt bundled up in a nicely done fake-fur coat and boots. He straightened, unable to wait any longer. He would look. Then he would investigate. Then he would likely invite her out to dinner. He put his shoulders back, then turned around, afire with anticipation.

He looked.

Then he felt his jaw slide down on its own.

The creature before him was covered with something, but it wasn't a fake fur. It looked more like mud. The dirt was flaking off her coat in layers while clinging to her hat and scarf with admirable tenacity. And not only was she filthy, she smelled. The fact that he could ascertain that from twenty paces was truly frightening. It wasn't anything a gallon of Chanel No. 5 couldn't cure. Sam stared at the apparition, unable to believe it was a woman.

“Good to see ya, kid,” Mr. Smith said with an indulgent chuckle. “Roll in this mornin'?”

“And not a moment too soon,” the swamp monster grumbled. “You should see what's been done to my—”

“Boy, here's your things,” Mr. Smith interrupted, shoving Sam's box of supplies at him. “You'd best be headin' home. I have the feeling there's going to be a storm brewing right quick.”

Sam didn't need to hear that twice. The last storm that had brewed had left him stranded in twelve inches of mud in the middle of the road to his rented cabin. If the Tenderfoot Patrol hadn't come to rescue him, he would have starved to death. He grabbed his box and made a beeline for the door, slipping twice on the mud the creature had dragged in with her, but skillfully avoiding the rotting floorboard by the front door.

“ 'Bye, Mr. Smith.”

“See ya around, boy. Better batten down those hatches.”

Sam didn't bother to say anything to the woman as he passed her. He was far too busy holding his breath so he didn't have to inhale her fragrant Pig Pen—like aura.

He pulled the door shut behind him and let out the breath he'd been holding. He paused to clear his head, giving it a shake for good measure. Nothing like a little fresh air to bring a man back to his senses. He carefully negotiated a path to his car, threw the supplies in the back, and mucked his way around to the driver's side. Twenty minutes and he'd be home. Maybe he'd go back to the old standby of writing on a legal pad with a smooth, round number two pencil instead of playing power-surge roulette with his computer. That would certainly save him some aggravation. Then he'd make a filet for supper. He'd hole up in his nice warm cabin and weather whatever storm Alaska saw fit to throw at him.

SYDNEY KINCAID STOOD in Smith's Dry Goods and Sundries and praised the wonders of civilization. She pulled off her filthy knit hat and dragged her fingers through her hair. She'd never felt so dirty in all her life, and it had been her boarder's fault. Damn the woman if she hadn't left the garage door open. The remains of a critter invasion were readily obvious to even the most plugged of noses. A broken window and no hot water had been the last straw. Well, that and the fact that the place was clean. It had taken her almost a half an hour to make it feel like home again.

But now home was comfortably strewn with clutter, and her stomach was about to be filled with something besides trail mix. Life was improving all the time.

“So, Syd,” Joe said, pulling out another box and beginning to fill it with Sydney's standing order of just-add-water suppers. “How'd it go?”

“How does it ever go?” Sydney grumbled as she crossed the store to toss her hat on Joe's counter. “I've spent the last four months pulling one city boy after another out of places they never should have been looking at in magazines. Don't people realize this is
wilderness
up here?”

“Reckon they don't,” Joe said, rearranging a few cans of stew.

“If that wasn't bad enough,” Sydney continued, irritated, “I go home to find my house clean. Just what kind of neat freak did you rent my extra room to, anyway? I thought you said she was a writer. I expected lots of crumpled-up balls of typing paper hiding under the coffee table.”

“You could have done worse,” Joe offered. “Tidy isn't bad.”

“I don't like it,” Sydney groused, reaching into Joe's candy jar and helping herself to a piece of licorice. “I didn't see any curlers in the bathroom, but I'll bet she's just as lily white and frilly as they come. She's a baker, too, can you believe it?”

Joe pushed Sydney's box at her. “Hurry on home, girl. There's a storm brewing, and I wouldn't want you to miss out on it.”

“You mean be out in it, don't you, Joe?”

“Reckon so.”

Sydney pulled out another piece of licorice. “Who was that man?” she asked casually. He might have been a potential tour-guiding customer, and she wasn't one to miss out on a business opportunity.

“What man?” Joe asked, blinking innocently.

Sydney chewed even more casually. “You know, that city guy. Old man Anderson was grumbling about him being a writer or something.”

Joe reached under the counter and pulled out a magazine. “There's a piece in here of his. Read it myself. It wasn't bad, if you like that sort of thing.”

Sydney looked at the cooking magazine and dismissed it as something she'd be interested in only if hell froze over. She turned her attentions back to the matter at hand. “Is he planning on staying?” Or course, she wasn't
truly
interested, but she could appreciate a fine-looking man as well as the next girl.

“I wouldn't know what his plans are. I suppose you could ask him the next time you see him.”

Sydney shook her head. “We're attracting these writer types like flies up here. The next thing you know, we're going to need a stoplight or two.”

“We just might,” Joe agreed.

Sydney shoved the magazine in her box and made her way out to her mud-encrusted Jeep, trying to put the man out of her mind. She'd probably never see him again, so there wasn't much use in worrying about it. Especially since she wasn't a girl on the lookout for romance. She had her father's trail-guide business to keep running, and her own reputation to maintain. City boys with eyes as green as spring leaves and hair the color of sable just didn't fit into her plans. The man probably couldn't put a match to a handful of dry kindling and get anything but smoke.

She drove home slowly, tired to the bone. Four months of being out in the wild, going into Anchorage only to wash her clothes and pick up another group of greenhorns, had left her aching for home and hot showers. Of course, her shower today might not be hot, thanks to whatever damage Samantha had done, but that could be fixed in time. First a shower, then maybe she'd come out and find a hot meal waiting for her. The cake sitting on the counter had been delicious. Sydney hadn't meant to eat all but one slice, but she hadn't had a decent meal in weeks. Sam was good for something, even if just for cooking. Joe had been annoyingly closemouthed in his letters, not dropping a single hint about what Sam wrote.

Sydney braked suddenly, sending the Jeep into a skid. It settled to a stop, and she looked off into the distance, feeling dread settle into the pit of her stomach. Sam was a Samantha, wasn't she? It really was possible that two writers had moved into Flaherty over the summer, wasn't it?

She knew all she had to do was pull out the magazine Joe had given her and check.

She shook her head. Joe wouldn't have rented out her house to a man. He was a terrible matchmaker, but even he had to draw the line somewhere. Besides, it was a food magazine. What kind of guy would write for a food magazine?

Sydney put the car back into gear and eased the clutch out until the tires caught. Sam was no doubt pleasingly plump and terribly maternal—just the kind of roommate Sydney had been looking for. If she could be convinced not to try to fix anything else electrical, that was.

The door to the garage was closed, and Sydney took it for granted that Sam had parked her car inside. A lecture about keeping the door closed could wait until after dinner. No sense in upsetting the cook. Sydney' d had enough trail rations over the past few months that she was willing to keep her mouth shut in exchange for some real food.

She left her Jeep in the gravel pit that served as a driveway, then walked into the house, dropping her muddy coat on the floor and discarding her hat, gloves, and scarf along the way to the basement. She went down and made a few minor adjustments to the water heater. Someone had been trying to turn it up and turned it down instead. Sydney shook her head in disbelief. She'd have to put her foot down about Sam loitering anywhere but the kitchen. It could be hazardous to their health.

She discarded the rest of her clothes on the way to the bathroom. Sponge baths in the privacy of her tent just hadn't cut it for her. Already she could feel the hard spray washing away the layers of grime, taking the tension with it. Baby-sitting helpless executives was hard on a woman. Maybe Sam would hear her washing up, take the hint, and start dinner. Maybe she would even warm up the last piece of that chocolate cake and top it off with some ice cream.

The guest room door opened, and Sydney hastily reached for a towel to cover her otherwise naked self. She'd say a quick hello, then duck into the bathroom for her well-deserved shower. After all, she wasn't exactly dressed for a long conversation.

Sydney looked at her housemate.

Then she blinked again, just to make sure she wasn't imagining things.