I managed to slide into Alan’s driveway two minutes early, which I figured was polite but not desperate. And because I was physically incapable of not bringing some sort of hospitality offering with me, I presented Alan with a batch of chocolate chess squares when he opened the door.
“I told you, just bring yourself,” he said, feigning a stern tone. I fought against the giggle forming in response to the little plaid apron he was wearing over shirt and jeans. He said, “I have dessert covered.”
Just then, the loud screeching of a smoke alarm sounded over Alan’s shoulder. As he turned, I could see smoke billowing from the kitchen. Alan paled. “Oh, shit.”
I chuckled. “Would that be the dessert you have covered?”
Alan dashed into the inferno and came back with what appeared to be a large charcoal briquette. I assumed that at one point, it was a pan of brownies. Alan chewed his lip. “You know, with enough icing, it might not be half bad.”
“Alan, take the chess squares, and stop being stubborn.”
“Thank God, my hands are freaking burning!” he yowled, ending his manly acceptance of second-degree burns by tossing the burning lump into the bushes.
“Don’t you want to salvage the pan or something?” I asked as he ushered me into the house.
“Nah, I’ll get it later. The stench will keep the bears away.”
“Nice,” I said, snickering as he led me into the great room, a combination dining room, living room, and office. In the corner, I could see a radio, several maps on the walls, a huge first-aid kit, all of the equipment you’d expect a forest ranger to need on hand. But the rest of the house was all Alan, exactly how you’d expect a single man living in the woods to decorate his home. We’re talking a lot of plaid and hunting trophies. But it was clean and tidy. There was a comfortable little blaze going in the big stone fireplace and a pretty pine rocker next to the hearth. The table was set with dishes that matched and wine glasses that didn’t. There was a basketball-sized bunch of blue petals blooming from an old crockery pitcher on the table. And the smell of slightly singed brownie filled the house.
“Forget-me-nots?” I asked, rubbing my fingers against the tiny, velvety blue petals. He nodded. “That’s very sweet.”
Alan shrugged. “Well, it sounds nicer than eating by a bouquet of wooly lousewart.”
I considered that for a moment. “That it does.”
“I wasn’t kidding about the Stouffer’s box. Tonight’s menu consists of bagged salad and frozen lasagna. I don’t cook for myself much, which is why I come to the saloon for most of my meals. Well, it’s not the only reason,” he said, winking at me. “The company isn’t bad.”
“Yes, Abner, Buzz, and Leonard are charming,” I conceded. “I appreciate not having to cook. I’m sure anything you serve will be great . . . with the obvious exception of the brownies. Can I help with anything?”
“Nope, you just sit, and I’ll get everything on the table.” I climbed up onto a bar stool near his kitchen counter, watching as he got dinner on the table with all the agility of a wounded moose. I would have offered to help, but I figured it was a point of pride for him. All I could do was watch, cringe, and try to make polite chitchat. As we ate, we talked about his job, his huge family back in Montana, how he had adjusted to life in Alaska.
“It really wasn’t that different from home,” he said as he tried to dish a third square of lasagna onto my plate. Stuffed beyond capacity, I waved it off as I poured both of us healthy glasses of red wine. “The same kind of weather. The same kind of rough living. I missed my family a lot at first. I’m the only one of seven kids to have moved off the ranch. Everybody else married and set up house right there with my parents in a sort of complex of those prefab houses. I told my dad if they added too many more, they’d end up on the news like those weird polygamist groups.”
I choked on my wine.
“You have to move on and be your own person eventually, you know?” he said, sipping thoughtfully. “It’s not that I don’t love them all like crazy, but sometimes . . . I don’t know, sometimes I wished I was an only child, just so I could finish a sentence, finish a meal without some dramatic announcement, get through a holiday without wanting to throw a turkey leg at someone’s head and yell, ‘Nobody cares what you think about the next election!’”
“Well, I’m an only child, and I couldn’t do any of those things, either, if it makes you feel any better,” I told him as we moved over to the big, comfy brown corduroy couch. “Except for the turkey legs. My parents are vegetarian. I had to throw brown rice.”
“Hmm. The grass isn’t greener. Nope, that doesn’t make me feel better at all. You’re destroying my childhood fantasies here.”
“My childhood fantasies involved vaccinations and parents who didn’t see the PTA as some sort of conformist conspiracy. By my calculations, you lived my childhood fantasy.”
“Hippies, huh?” he asked, his face suddenly sympathetic.
“The hippiest.”
“We get a couple of those up here every year, wanting to build a cabin in the preserve and live off the land Thoreau-style. Generally, I end up rescuing them off the top of a bluff because they didn’t spend enough time researching or preparing for life up here. They don’t plan for the right kind of gear, clothes, food, shelter. They go toddling off half-assed and end up getting hurt.”
“Is that what you think I did?” I asked.
“No!” he exclaimed, squeezing my hand. “You’ve got more common sense than most locals, Mo.”
Clearly, Buzz hadn’t told him about my tendency to get cornered by wolves and serial waitress robbers.
Alan moved in closer, and I could smell Irish Spring soap, wine, and the homey warmth of prepackaged tomato sauce. “I think you’re fitting in just right.”
Alan was a first-rate kisser, right up there with Jeff Moser, my date to the senior formal and claimer of my virginity. Alan covered all the bases. Soft, increasingly insistent brushes of his lips against mine. Cupping my chin in his hand and running his fingers along my jaw. Pulling me close enough to show me how much he wanted me without making me feel as if he was grinding against me.
I could have gone on kissing Alan all night. It was certainly a more pleasant way to spend the evening than my solo birthday plans, which centered around Sno Balls and Sixteen Candles. But when Alan’s hands moved to the buttons of my shirt, I stopped him, tilting my forehead to rest against his. I just wasn’t ready for this yet. Alan was a sweet guy, but there were no guarantees that having sex with him wouldn’t turn out to be a huge mistake I would have to cringe over every time he came into the saloon for the next six months. I liked Alan. I wanted more time with him and a lot more kissing. But I couldn’t help but feel that we were falling into this just a little too easily.
God damn it, Evie.
I would spend the rest of my evening in a cold shower, contemplating whether it was a worse punishment to give her a kick in the butt or deny her chess squares for the next week.
I groaned and buried my face in the crook of Alan’s neck. “I’m sorry. I think I should get going.”
“Too fast?” he asked, grimacing.
“I’m not saying never, just not tonight,” I told him. “I don’t want to rush into anything.”
“Neither do I,” he assured me, kissing my cheeks. “As long as we get there eventually.”
“Maybe we can do this again sometime?” I suggested. “I’ll cook.”
“I knew it. Dinner was below your culinary standards.” He shook his head in mock shame.
“Hey.” I kissed him again. “You did your best.”
“I bow to the master,” he said, pulling me to my feet.
“Don’t you forget it.”
“I’m sorry it took me so long to ask you out,” he said, sliding my coat onto my shoulders. His long fingers tucked the collar under my chin and remained there for a few seconds, warming the skin and making me smile. “You just seem, well, cautious. And you seemed to be getting so much attention straight off when you got to town, I didn’t want to spook you.”
“I can appreciate that,” I told him. “And you don’t spook me. In fact, nonspookiness is one of your better qualities.”
Considering his biggest competition at the moment was a werewolf, I felt that was a fair statement.
Alan snickered. “Well, something has to balance out the bad cooking.”
Alan walked me to my truck, gave me a knee-buckling kiss good night, and asked me to call him when I got home safely. Sweetest. Guy. Ever.
I pulled into my driveway, glad that I’d remembered to turn on my porch lights. The night was clear and bright, but I felt better being able to see whatever or whoever might be lurking near my doorstep. Humming a silly country tune, I hopped out of Lucille and paused to pick my house key out of the jumble of metal on my key ring.
“Why do I have so many keys?” I wondered aloud.
The moment I stopped moving, I felt it, a familiar presence over my shoulder on the east side of the little clearing that surrounded my house. I turned to see the black wolf standing there, just staring at me, his blue-green eyes burning eerily in the reflected light of the waxing moon. I took an instinctual step toward the door, but I dropped my keys. I crouched down to pick them up, keeping an eye on my visitor to see whether he moved when I was a smaller, more vulnerable target. He simply sat on his rear haunches, watching me with his head tilted at a quizzical angle, as if he was saying, Come on, hurry up, you’re the last stop on my security detail, and then I can take off and chase rabbits for the rest of the night.
I slipped my key into the door and pushed it open, turning toward the wolf to—I don’t know, say good night? But he was gone. The branches where he’d been standing weren’t even stirring. I scanned the rest of the yard. Nothing.
Had I imagined the whole thing? Was I going through some sort of delayed PTSD reaction? What if the wolf never existed? What if my subconscious just made up my canine companion to protect me from memories of killing Teague, dumping his body, and setting his truck on fire to cover up my crime? I mean, I’d never shown previous signs of multiple-personality disorder, but that sort of thing could develop under extreme duress, right?
These were not the ponderings of an emotionally well-adjusted person.
Oddly enough, though, this didn’t even rank on my “top five weirdest ways I’ve wrapped up my birthday” list.
DESPITE EVIE’S CLAIMS that Cooper would be “coming around,” he pointedly avoided coming into the saloon, even though I saw him walking right past the window sometimes. I didn’t know how to feel about that. I felt guilty, because Cooper was changing his schedule and missing time with his friends because he wanted to stay away from me. I was annoyed with myself for assuming that his issue was with me, annoyed with myself for caring either way. And then I was back to guilty. It was a vicious cycle.
Fortunately, I was distracted by a whole new kind of annoyance. A week after my birthday, Susie Q came into the saloon with a smug Cheshire cat’s grin and told me there was a package waiting for me at the post office.
I told her it couldn’t be mine. I’d already received my birthday package from Kara. No one else would send me anything here.
“Well, it’s a pretty big box,” Susie said slyly. “It took me a while to figure out it was for you. There was no address, just sent to the post office in care of the postmaster, Grundy, Alaska. And then I saw the name on the label. It confused me for a little bit, too, but you are the only Wenstein in town.” Finally at her point, Susie grinned. “Mo is a clever nickname. I never would have guessed your full name is Moon—”