Under Alaskan Skies (13 page)

Of course, nobody could hand over another person. He had to want to be handed over. She was being ridiculous. Ordinary women had flirtations with men and didn’t lose their heads over it. They went on with their lives, meeting other men, even having affairs. Why couldn’t she? Because she wasn’t an ordinary woman. She’d been raised by her father who taught her nothing about how to choose a man or handle one after you’d chosen him. He’d taught her many things like how to scare away a bear and how to repair a frozen plumbing pipe, how to predict the weather and how to fly a small plane. There were other things she should have learned on her own by now but hadn’t. Like how to handle jealousy. How to say no when you wanted to say yes. How to be happy with what you had and not wish for more.

She’d never had even a discussion with anyone of how to act around men. How to judge a man. It was a mother’s job to teach you how to choose a mate to spend the rest of your life with. How could her father teach her that when he’d bungled that decision himself. Because of her innocence and her naiveté, she’d made one major mistake. She was determined not to make another. She was glad Matt had gone off, because
if he hadn’t, she didn’t know what would have happened next. She might have been tempted to make another major mistake. After that episode at the hot spring, she might have been more than tempted… But not now. Not anymore. Thanks to Maggie. Maggie was an attractive woman, and it was clear Matt was enjoying a rare vacation and a rare opportunity to do things he hadn’t done before. Why shouldn’t he take advantage of it to the fullest?

Chapter Six

Carrie stayed at the party as long as she could keep a smile on her face and manage to make some kind of conversation with the well-wishers. When most of them finally left, she helped clean up the gym, stuffing large plastic garbage bags with used paper plates, paper cups and plastic forks. It was good to have busy work to do, to keep her mind off Matt and Maggie.

Then she drove herself home, passing Donny’s house and noticing that Maggie’s station wagon was nowhere in sight. They’d be at her house by now. Her two-story house filled with comfortable Danish modern furniture she’d shipped up here when she married Bud. Right now they’d be sitting on her leather couch drinking brandy in front of her fireplace while she regaled him with stories of her adventures in the frozen North that certainly matched anything Carrie could tell and then some. Maggie would show him pictures of the time she raced her sled dogs across the Arctic with a previous boyfriend. Maggie could be very amusing and very sexy at the same time. She was never at a loss for men in her life. None of them seemed to stay very long, but that didn’t seem to
bother her. It shouldn’t bother Carrie, either. She gripped the steering wheel so tightly her palms were sweating. She told herself to stop torturing herself. She told herself she’d brought this all on herself. She’d brought Matt here and she’d introduced him to Maggie.

When she got home she stoked up the fire in her woodstove and went upstairs to change her clothes. A glance in the full-length mirror in her bedroom confirmed what she’d feared. She looked like a wreck. She looked as if she’d been caught in the rain, and every bit of her thirty years. She could see the wrinkles at the corners of her eyes if she looked hard enough. Soon her hair would turn gray.

It was still red, but it had dried in frizzy curls from the hot steam at the springs, and the coveralls hung loosely on her body. Even though people in the bush seldom dressed up, even for a birthday party, everyone at the party had known about it in advance and had at least combed their hair and made an attempt to look their best. Everyone but her.

She couldn’t help picturing Maggie. Maggie, who’d known about the party ahead of time and had had a chance to dress for it. She’d looked terrific in well-pressed wool pants and a black turtleneck sweater that set off her flawless complexion. Her blond hair gleamed in the overhead lights in the gym and Carrie wasn’t sure, but it looked like she was wearing diamond studs in her ears instead of local jewelry. Maggie could have passed anywhere in the lower forty-eight for an attractive woman, and up here she really stood out among the folks who dressed for comfort and warmth instead of style. Carrie had always
known that. She’d accepted the fact that Maggie was the town vamp. It was only now that it bothered her.

She vowed to upgrade her wardrobe the next time she was in Fairbanks or Anchorage. Not to catch a man. Just to feel better about herself. Right now she felt rotten about herself and pretty much everyone else. She kicked her rubber boots off and hit her toe on the closet door. She swore out loud, glad that she was alone in the house, where no one could hear her. It was a relief to get the boots off and it was a relief to swear and shout. In the absence of any nice clothes, or a facial or a manicure, the thing that would make her feel better about herself right now was a hot bath, a cup of hot chocolate and watching some mind-blotting program on television.

She would not think about Matt. She would not wonder when and if he was coming back tonight. He was a free agent. He didn’t owe her anything. Just the reverse. She owed him.

She was in the tub when she heard someone at the front door. Her heart leaped to her throat. She knocked the soap into the water and couldn’t pick it up. Every time she tried, it slipped out of her grasp. Before she could get up and out of the tub, she heard his voice.

“Carrie?”

“Upstairs,” she yelled back.

She heard his footsteps on the stairs. “I’m in the tub,” she said, sinking down into the water. There were goose bumps all over her skin, despite the fact that she was submerged in hot water.

He stood outside the bathroom door. “Haven’t you had enough hot water for one day?” he asked.

“I guess not,” she said. “Have you?”

There was a long silence. The words hovered in the air. She wanted to take them back. She wanted to sink down, down, down and let the water fill her ears so she wouldn’t hear the silence anymore. The harmless remark didn’t come out the way she meant it. Or did it?

“Is that an invitation?” he asked at last. His voice sent a shiver of apprehension through her.

“No, no,” she protested. “Just a question. Don’t answer it. I’ll be right out.” She grabbed the shampoo and rubbed it through her hair. Maybe she couldn’t be as glamorous as Maggie, but she could smell like a woman instead of a sailor.

When she came downstairs in clean clothes and clean hair, he’d lighted the fire in the fireplace and was fanning the flames. She noticed he, too, had changed from the boat clothes she’d given him to some well-worn jeans of her father’s and a knit shirt that fitted his lanky, well-toned body better than could have been expected. She swallowed hard thinking of how she knew about the muscles in his legs, the taut skin over his lower belly….

He straightened and stood looking at her for a long moment with an intensity that made her self-conscious. Was he picturing her in the old baggy coveralls? Or was he remembering how she looked with nothing on at all. Or was he comparing her to Maggie? She wiped her damp palms against the sides of her pants.

“How was Donny?” she asked.

“Pretty much the same. Not up to chess, I’m afraid. Too tired. But the family is great, keeping up his spirits.”

Carrie nodded. She offered him something to eat. A grilled-cheese sandwich? He said no, thanks. Donny’s family had insisted he share a bowl of stew with them. She didn’t mention Maggie. She didn’t want to. She didn’t want him to. Still, she wondered…

She sat on the hearth to dry her hair, trying to pretend this was an ordinary night. But nothing had been ordinary since the moment she’d first laid eyes on him.

“Why didn’t you tell me it was your birthday?” he asked, standing in the middle of the room with his hands stuffed in his pockets.

“I forgot.”

“I don’t believe that. I’ve never known a woman to forget her birthday.”

“And you know lots of women,” she said with a touch of sarcasm that was unlike her. But then jealousy and envy were likewise unlike her.

“No, I don’t. But the ones I do know, take my mother, for instance. Weeks before her birthday she drops hints of what she wants. Then my father buys it for her. Of course they go out for an elaborate birthday dinner.”

“And your fiancée? Does she get the royal treatment, as well?” Carrie was sorry the minute she’d said these words. They came out sounding bitter and jealous. She really wasn’t either. But neither was she herself. These past few days had brought out the worst in her. She didn’t know what had happened to
her, but ever since she’d met Matt her whole life had turned upside down.

Raised to be self-sufficient, she’d suddenly become dependent on someone who would be gone soon, and then where would she be? Oh, not dependent on his money or anything as mundane as that. It was far more subtle, far more insidious. She’d become dependent on his very presence. The look in his eyes, the way he smiled, the line of his jaw, the width of his shoulders, the way his hands felt on her skin. The way he made her feel—feminine and desirable.

He was the type who might never be dependent on anybody. She knew he loved and respected his parents, and of course he had a girlfriend, but he seemed to be so engrossed in his work he’d had no time for anyone else in his life. So she had to stifle this urge to make him want her as much as she wanted him. That wasn’t possible. Raised to despise vanity, she found herself wishing for new clothes. As if that would make a difference. Raised to fear nothing, she now feared being alone for the rest of her life. What on earth was wrong with her? When would she be back to normal?

“She’s not my fiancée. I can’t marry Mira. I thought maybe I could. But once we started the cruise, I knew it wouldn’t work.”

“I thought it was all arranged,” Carrie said.

“Oh, it was. By our parents. But adults in their thirties make their own decisions. Or they should. Besides, Mira deserves better.”

“Better than you, an M.D. with a brilliant career ahead of him? Now you’re being modest.”

“She deserves someone who’ll love her. I don’t,”
he said brusquely. “Speaking of Mira, I should call the ship. Have you any idea of when the weather will clear?”

He must be anxious to get out of here. Despite what had happened out there on the island, or maybe because of it, he was getting antsy. She knew the signs. She’d observed them in the past and was helpless to do anything about them. She’d seen her former fiancé look out the window, look up at the sky and pace the floor. She remembered her mother trying to cope by doing volunteer work and writing travel articles about Alaska, but never able to completely shut out the call of the outside world, and finally giving in to the inevitable.

“I checked it out,” she said. “It could clear tomorrow. At least there’s a possibility. I can’t promise, but it looks good.”

“That’s too bad,” he said.

“What?”

“One of Donny’s little brothers invited me to go fishing tomorrow, and you, too. I’d hate to disappoint him and honestly, they didn’t believe this, but I’ve never been fishing before.”

“Never been fishing? I don’t believe it, either. Don’t they have rivers or lakes in California? What about the ocean?”

“All of the above,” he said. “But if you want fish you buy it at the grocery store. You don’t need to catch it yourself.”

“But it isn’t as fresh. And you don’t get the thrill of hauling in a fish you’ve caught yourself,” she said.

“That’s why I want to go. I’ve always wanted to go fishing, but until now I had no one to take me.
You need someone to take you, to show you how, to bait your hook and take the fish off it.”

“Someone like your dad, maybe?”

“Yes, like your dad. But not my dad. My dad was always working. That’s the life of the big-city plastic surgeon. If he wasn’t on call, he was giving a paper at a conference or teaching a class. He’s well-known in his field, and you don’t get that way by spending your weekends fishing.”

“Does that mean you’ll follow in his footsteps?” she asked.

“Professionally? Yes, that’s the plan,” Matt said. Sometimes he wondered whose plan it was exactly. His path was clear before him. For years he’d plowed ahead, moving from college to med school to rotations and now this. The breaks had been few and far between. There hadn’t been time to think about the big picture. Until now. Until it was too late.

He reached in his back pocket and pulled out a small box. “I went to Maggie’s to do some shopping for your birthday present,” he said. “She said she had some jewelry for sale that you might like. She showed me her whole collection of native folk art and crafts and antique Russian artifacts and I saw how she sells her stuff on the Internet. She’s certainly enterprising.”

“Yes, she is,” Maggie murmured. “Enterprising and glamorous and a lot of fun, too.”

Her eyes widened in surprise when he put the box in her hand. What had she expected? Had no one given her a birthday present before? What about jewelry? Again his experience with women, like his mother and Mira, was that jewelry was an appropriate
gift at any time. They appreciated it, they expected it and they treasured it. But Carrie was not like the other women in his life. Maybe he’d made the wrong decision.

“You didn’t have to do that,” she said, staring at the box.

“Open it,” he said. “It won’t bite. And if it doesn’t fit, or you don’t like it, I can take it back. When Maggie showed it to me, I thought it would be right for you.”

“I’m sure it will be,” she said, but she still didn’t open the box. She sat there staring at it while her eyes filled with tears.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, sitting down next to her and pulling her close, so close the smell of her shampoo and the soap on her skin made his pulse quicken. “Did I do something wrong?”

She shook her head. “It’s just… I wasn’t expecting anything.” She tilted her face in his direction and let out a sigh. “Thank you.”

“Maybe you’d better look at it before you thank me.” Now he was really concerned it wouldn’t be appropriate or she wouldn’t like it. He wanted to give her something to remember him by. If she wanted to remember him. As for him, he needed nothing to remember her by. He knew he’d never forget these amazing days, and he wasn’t ready to have them brought to a close. He’d determined to stay over tomorrow, no matter what happened with the weather.