Under Alaskan Skies (6 page)

“You’ve had a stressful day, flying around looking for a doctor,” he said. “You flew us through rough weather and you had a scare about the boy.”

He put his arms around her and held her tight. It felt so good to be held, to have someone care about her. To admit to herself she was not as strong as she pretended. She had no idea why a stranger should be able to see into her mind the way no one else could. Maybe it was because she’d let down her guard for once. Maybe it was knowing she didn’t have to put up a front for him. After all, she’d never see him again after tomorrow or the day after at the most.

She looped her arms around his neck and pressed her wet cheek against his shoulder. He was so warm, so big, so solid. He smelled like the rain and the wind and the shampoo in her bathroom and a deep, dark, masculine smell that was all his. Her tears dried but she didn’t let go. Neither did he.

He cupped her face in his hands and looked deep into her eyes. “I’ve never known anyone like you.”
His voice dropped to a hoarse whisper. “Never seen anyone as beautiful.”

Now was the time to be tough. She knew that. Now was the time to say thanks but no thanks, to smile and let go. Go make coffee. Go roll out the dough for the cinnamon buns. Anything but stand there and wait for him to kiss her. Because she knew he was going to. She could see it in his eyes. Hear it in his voice. Feel the vibrations in the air.

But when it came, she wasn’t prepared. She wasn’t prepared for his mouth to take possession of hers, for the passion behind it, or for the way she reacted. As if she’d never been kissed before. She hadn’t. Not like that. His mouth was hard and hungry. As if making up for years of abstinence. As if he’d been waiting for her all his life.

She kissed him back. Softly at first then harder and faster as if she didn’t have enough time. Deep down somewhere in the back of her mind she knew she was going to regret this. Maybe not tonight. Maybe not tomorrow. But soon and for a long time. Her knees were so weak she was afraid she would fall if he didn’t hold her.

He pulled back just slightly. She was afraid he’d leave her there, deprived of his heat, his hard body against hers. But he didn’t. He trailed hot kisses from her lips to her ear and back. She moaned, and he invaded her mouth with his tongue. She met him thrust for thrust and she still wanted more. She wanted all of him.

His hands slid under her sweater. Impatient, she struggled to take it off. She wanted nothing between them. Nothing.

That was when she heard the knock on the door. Dimly, as if it belonged to another house, another time. She wished it did. But it was her house and it was now.

She didn’t know how she got to the door to open it, but she must have, because Stan, a local logger who’d had a crush on her for years was standing there, smiling shyly.

“Sorry to bother you, Carrie. But I heard you had a doctor here.” His curious gaze traveled over her wrinkled sweater and her flushed cheeks.

“Oh…yes.” She ran her hands through her hair. Yanked at the hem of her sweater. “Hi, Stan. Come on in. This is…this is… Dr. Baker.”

Matt looked as if he was not at all surprised to have a patient come knocking on the door in a remote Alaskan village. He didn’t seem to realize that his hair was a mess and the shirt he was wearing was tearstained. He was also breathing hard.

“Didn’t mean to interrupt anything,” Stan said, his eyes moving from Carrie to Matt and back again. “But I’ve been having this problem with my eye.”

“Uh… Stan, Matt, Dr. Baker I mean, is just here on vacation… I mean he isn’t…”

“Come on in. Let’s have a look at it,” Matt said, overriding her, just as if he was the resident physician, on call and ready for patients. Although it was past nine o’clock and this was strictly above and beyond the call of duty.

While she watched, Matt took charge. Leading Stan to the desk in the corner, he examined his eye under the gooseneck lamp. Then he asked Carrie to get the bag he’d brought from the ship. He asked Stan how
long his eye had been swollen and red, told him he had a case of conjunctivitis and after digging through the bag, he found the appropriate eye drops the ship’s doctor had provided just in case he needed them. He gave them to Stan with instructions to use them twice a day along with some antibiotic pills.

“You ought to be feeling better in a few days,” Matt said.

“What if I don’t?” Stan asked, standing in the doorway, pulling on his dark beard.

Matt reached into the black bag for a pad of paper. On it he wrote his name and phone number. “You can call me,” he said. “I won’t be back this way, but maybe I can help you, anyway.”

“Thanks, Doc,” he said. “How much do I owe you?”

“It’s on the house,” Matt said with a smile.

Stan thanked him again, but instead of leaving, he hesitated, glancing shyly at Carrie. “I’ve got the pine boards for that bookcase I’m making for you,” he said. “You should come by and tell me how wide you want the shelves.”

“I will. Thanks, Stan. I’d almost forgotten about it.”

“I didn’t,” he said. “I remember the day you came by and we talked about my building it for you. You were wearing jeans and a yellow sweater. All this time I’ve been looking for just the right wood. Old growth, not too many knots…you know.”

“I appreciate that. Matt, Stan is not just a logger, but also the best carpenter in the whole area. I’ll drop by your shop just as soon as I can.”

Stan nodded and closed the door behind him, his medicine clutched in his hand.

“Friend of yours?” Matt asked.

“Everyone in town is a friend of mine,” she said.

“Everyone as fond of you as he is?” he asked.

“Let’s just say there aren’t many young unmarried people around, so we’ve been thrown together by people who naturally think we ought to be a couple, but…”

“He probably wouldn’t object.”

“He’s a sweet guy. That was very nice of you to take care of him,” Carrie said, turning off the desk light. She’d done everything she could to discourage Stan’s attentions, but it was hard to avoid him in such a small town. And hard to avoid the gossip that was better than hard currency in their little pocket of civilization.

“How could I say no?” Matt asked. “I certainly don’t mind at all. It reminds me of a rotation I did in general practice in a rural area of northern California. We saw everything and anything. I got to know the patients and their families. I almost wished… But by then I had my sights set on plastic surgery. It’s a tradition in the family. My grandfather, my father and now me. Like you and flying. You’re taking over the family business. So am I.”

“Did you have a choice?” she asked, sitting on the couch.

He sat next to her and put his arm around her shoulders. It felt so right, so natural, she leaned back against his arm and sighed with contentment. How easy it would be to forget that tomorrow or the next day he’d most certainly be gone. He would leave her
with a piece of paper with his name and number on it just like he gave Stan. And he’d tell her she could call him if she needed advice, but that it wasn’t likely he’d be back this way. As if she didn’t know.

“A choice? Of course. But my father’s health isn’t good. He’s had two heart attacks. Now more than ever he’s counting on me to take over his practice for him. Not today or tomorrow. I need more training, a long internship. But after that—” Matt cut himself off, suddenly depressed at the years ahead of sleepless nights, of being on call, endless rounds and memorizing details. Yet he was ready to be a doctor. He wanted to treat patients.

“Plastic surgery? Isn’t that doing face-lifts and tummy tucks?” Carrie asked.

“Some plastic surgeons do that,” he said. “I don’t find that kind of work interesting. I intend to do reconstruction, like for example, cleft palates. But enough about the future,” he said. “I don’t want to think about it now. I still have so much work ahead of me it gets to be daunting. It’s the present I’m interested in.”

Matt sifted his hands through her hair and buried his face in her auburn curls. He wanted to bury himself in her body. He shocked himself at the strength of his feelings. He didn’t expect the jolt of sexual desire that hit him like a bolt of lightning. He’d never wanted anybody the way he wanted her. But he wasn’t into one-night stands, and neither was she. He might not know much about her, but he knew that.

“You smell so damned good,” he said, his voice suddenly rocky and uneven. “And you feel so good.”

She pulled away and stood up. “Why don’t I make
some coffee?” she said, her voice no steadier than his. She felt it, too. She had to. All this passion couldn’t be one-sided.

“In other words,” he said. “Back off, Matt.”

“Yes,” she said. “No. I don’t know. I don’t know what’s happening to me.” She avoided his gaze by staring at her stockinged feet.

“The same thing that’s happening to me,” he said, looking up at her. He couldn’t stop staring at her scarlet cheeks, her rumpled clothes and her tousled hair. He wanted more than anything to carry her up those stairs to her bedroom, the one he’d seen after his shower. The one with the braided rug on the floor and the down comforter on the queen-size bed. “I’d call it delayed adolescence, or spontaneous combustion or just plain lust. But I don’t know. I only know it’s never happened to me before.”

She looked up. The firelight picked up green flecks in her soft eyes and they glowed in the firelight. “Me, neither,” she said softly. “I just don’t know what to do about it, except make coffee.”

“I have a few ideas,” he said. “We could start where we left off before that knock on the door.”

He watched her closely. She seemed to be wavering. Make coffee or make love. No, he couldn’t. He couldn’t make love to her tonight and walk out tomorrow. Call it honor or call it self-preservation, he couldn’t do it. But he wanted to. He wanted to so badly he ached.

“Make coffee,” he said, forcing himself to sound normal, as if his heart wasn’t banging against his chest. “We’ll talk. I want to hear the story of your life.”

“You’ve heard it,” she said. “Plain coffee or Irish?”

“Whatever you’re having.”

She nodded and left the room. He paced back and forth in her father’s sealskin moccasins in front of the windows, listening to the wind howling outside, hearing the rain slant huge drops against the windows. Inside it was warm and snug, thanks to her father, who’d built this house, and thanks to her for stockpiling firewood and food to keep them both warm and dry and well fed in the middle of the bush in an Alaskan storm. At the same time he was strung out like a taut wire. He wanted to follow her into the kitchen. He wanted to watch her make coffee. He wanted to memorize her every move, her every gesture. But he didn’t. Instead he forced himself to sit down again and take a deep breath and calm down.

Chapter Three

Matt stretched his legs out in front of him and watched the flames in the stone fireplace. He tried not to think of what he was missing by backing off. He tried not to worry about how he was going to be able to sleep while under the same roof as her.

She came back a while later with two cups of coffee and a plate of warm cookies that smelled like spices. She deliberately sat opposite him in a large, overstuffed chair with the coffee table between them.

He picked up his coffee cup and held it to his lips. She had laced it with cream and Irish whiskey. It went down his throat as smooth as honey. Warming and filling him with contentment as it went. He leaned back and smiled at her. “I have a feeling I only got the condensed version of your life story. I think you left out a few details,” he said.

“Maybe. I didn’t tell you about the day a bear came out of the woods when I was in the hot springs.”

“Hot springs, here?”

“On an island just a short hop away. I flew with some friends in the middle of winter. They were fishing,
I was soaking in the springs. A brown bear came out of the woods and scared me half to death. I was afraid to get out.”

The image of Carrie naked in the bubbling springs, the steam rising, her body turning pink, her hair tumbling on her bare shoulders was almost too much for him to take. He had a hard time following the rest of the story.

“What happened?” he asked. “Did you escape or did you get eaten alive?”

“I knew you weren’t listening,” she said. “You’re somewhere else.”

“I’m at the hot springs,” he confessed. “Or I wish I were.”

“If we had time, I’d take you in my boat,” she said. “It’s a beautiful spot.”

He thought about the cruise ship, with its gambling casino, dance floor and nightclub entertainment and a spa next to the pool on the main deck. That was where he’d be tomorrow. He could soak in hot water there with his parents and Mira. Not in a natural hot spring on an isolated island with Carrie. He forced himself to remember his obligations.

“You have a boat, too?” he asked.

“A small launch. I ferry people to other islands sometimes. When the planes are grounded, it’s the only way to get around.”

“Some other time,” he said, “I’d like to go.”

“Sure.” But they both knew there wouldn’t be any other time. “I should check the weather,” she said. She opened a cabinet to reveal a small TV set. “We have a satellite dish out back. We ought to be able to get something.”

They got something. They got the Anchorage station. He watched the weather woman point to clouds, talk about rain and fog and speculate about wind conditions. He found it hard to concentrate.

“I hate to say this, but you may not get out tomorrow,” she said with a frown.

“I hate to say this, but I don’t really give a damn,” he said, draining his cup.

“That may be the Irish whiskey talking,” she said. “You may feel different tomorrow.”

Before he could say anything the phone rang. They sat there listening to it. Each reluctant to have the evening interrupted by someone from the outside.

“It might be another patient. Word must be getting around,” she said.

“I don’t mind. I’ll see anybody who needs me. Answer it.”

But it wasn’t a patient. Wordlessly, Carrie handed him the phone. It was Mira. He instantly regretted leaving his number with his parents. But what if there’d been an emergency? What if his father had another heart attack? If he had, there was still nothing he could do, he reminded himself. He was stuck in Mystic. For better or worse. At the moment it was not only better. It was the best.