Love Finds You in North Pole, Alaska (19 page)

“Is that why you decided to sell it?”

“That’s why I considered it…” Then, “Did you ever see reruns of that old TV show
Sanford and Son
?”

Sam nodded.

“Realtors compared the place to Fred’s garage.” He shot her a lop-sided grin. “If they could see it now, they’d have a change of heart, thanks to you.”

So had he changed his mind about selling? Sam certainly hoped so, because she’d enjoyed every fingernail-breaking moment she’d spent fixing the place up and didn’t relish the idea of leaving it in search of another job.

“If things keep up the way they have been these past few weeks,” he added, “maybe I can afford to replace that eyesore of a store sign.”

“You’re a carpenter. Why not make a new one yourself?”

He paused before saying, “You’re just full of good ideas, aren’t you.”

Not a question, she noticed, but a statement, and Sam didn’t know how to take it. “But in all honesty, I think that old sign is cute in a kitsch sort of way.”

He made a face.

“So Bryce,” she said slowly, “what would it take, exactly, to get your carpentry shop up and running?”

“Money, tools, machines…” He laughed then tapped the steering wheel. “Customers…need I go on?”

“No, I think I get the picture.” An idea to help him get his business off the ground began to percolate in her head as Bryce brought the van to a slow halt, pointing across the field beside the road.

“Look,” he said, “a raven.”

“He’s so big, and…and so
beautiful.
” Without taking her eyes from the bird, she whispered, “It’s a male, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, but…how’d you know?”

Shrugging, she said, “He’s so black and shiny. Females aren’t usually as bright, right, so they’re better able to hide when they’re nesting.”

“I’ve got to admit, I’m amazed.”

She faced him then, to see if his expression matched the tone of awe and admiration in his voice. “Why?”

“For starters, I don’t know a single other woman who’d say that’s a beautiful bird. And honestly? I expected an East Coaster like you would cower in her seat at the sight of a bird that has a reputation for being the deliverer of bad news.”

“Believe it or not, we have ravens in Baltimore, too. But I interrupted your story. Sorry. Please. Continue. You were surprised I didn’t cower at the sight of a ferocious blackbird…”

“…and you can tell a male from a female. Plus, you know
why
the good Lord made them look different. I’m impressed.”

“Just goes to show,” Sam said, lifting her chin a notch, “that you can’t judge a book by its cover.”

“Believe me, you can. Most of the time.”

The tone of his voice alone would have kept her from responding to that remark, but then she caught the look on his face, all somber and serious. Sam wondered if she’d ever figure him out. “So what’s this stuff about ravens being bearers of bad tidings?”

“They’ve sort of earned their bad reputation, historically speaking.” The raven strutted in a circle, flapping its wings as Bryce continued. “Swedish folklore says they’re the ghosts of people who didn’t get a proper Christian burial, and there’s a legend that says King Arthur disguised himself as a raven, making it seriously bad luck for the knights to kill one.”

As if the bird heard and understood, it cut loose with a loud
kaw-kaw-kaw
, inspiring Sam to hum “The Twilight Zone” theme. “I much prefer the story I learned as a kid in Bible camp, of how Noah told the raven to fly away and check things out, and when it never came back, that’s how he knew he’d soon be able to park the ark.”

“Park the ark,” Bryce repeated, chuckling. “You’re a nut.”

She liked making him laugh. Liked knowing that, for the moment, anyway, he was taking some much-deserved pleasure from life. “So what’s the surprise you wanted to show me?”

“It’s just up ahead,” he said, steering back onto the highway. As they drove, Bryce explained that Alaska got its name from the Aleut word
alyeska
, meaning “great land.”

“It’s the only state in the union where a man can head into the wilderness and keep going for six hundred miles without ever seeing a barbed wire fence.”

“That is pretty spectacular,” she agreed.

“I’ll show you spectacular,” he said, parking. “Better grab your jacket. Gets a little blustery up on that ridge.”

After helping her shrug into it, he took her hand and led her onto a narrow, overgrown road. “This was part of the original Richardson Trail. Back in the midforties, it’s what caught the attention of the Davises.”

“Aren’t they the couple who founded North Pole?”

When he looked down at her with a look of affection and admiration, Sam thought her heart might explode. He gave her hand a little squeeze and guided her farther down the rutted path.

“Don’t know for sure what lured them to Alaska in the first place, but when I read the story of what drew them to this spot, I understood why they wanted to settle here.”

Sam didn’t understand why anyone would want to live on this muddy little stretch of road, miles from the highway, overgrown with weeds. But she opted to give Bryce the benefit of the doubt. Maybe this place had looked different, back then, and maybe—

They stepped into a clearing at that moment, and what she saw stunned her into silence. Thick boughs of towering blue spruce swayed overhead as scrub pines dotted the hillside ahead. The sky was a shade of blue like none she’d seen in paintings or even in nature shows on the Discovery Channel, and it went on and on, for what seemed like an eternity.

“Olive calls this place Forever.”

“I can see why.” Then, “How can anyone see a thing like this and not believe in God?”

Bryce took a step forward and looked into her face. “Are you…are you
crying
?”

“Of course not,” she answered, swiping the telltale evidence from her cheeks. “It’s just…it’s the wind and—”

Nothing could have surprised her more than when he took her in his arms and held her tight. “Don’t be embarrassed. I had pretty much the same reaction, first time I came up here,” he said. “The place has that effect on some people.”

Sniffing, she rooted in her pocket for a tissue to blot her eyes. “Only some?”

“It never got to my folks that way, but Olive blubbered like a baby.” He took a small step back and lifted Sam’s chin on a bent forefinger. “And why do I get the feeling that if I wasn’t here, you’d have done your fair share of blubbering, too?”

She stared up at him, wishing she could remove the eye patch and look into both beautiful brown eyes at the same time.

Just then a bald eagle screeched overhead, capturing their attention and making her expel a tiny gasp. “Okay, so I’ve seen my fair share of ravens back East, but I have to admit, that’s a first.”

Bryce turned her loose so that he could point into the shallow valley ahead. “Last time I was up here, beavers had built a huge dam in that stream over there. Maybe next time we’re here, I’ll show it to you.”

Sam realized she was beginning to understand this guy, at least a little bit. He didn’t like listening to Christmas music twenty-four-seven, and he’d grown tired of candy cane lampposts and streets named after Santa’s reindeer, but he did love his hometown.
This
aspect of it, anyway.

She’d been so warm, standing in the circle of his embrace, and now as the wind whistled through the pines, she shivered.

He noticed instantly and draped an arm around her shoulders, drawing her close to his side. “So what do you think, Samantha Sinclair? Can you hack it up here in the frozen North?”

“Hmpf,” she teased, resting her head on his shoulder, “I’m beginning to think that’s just a lot of hooey printed up by the Chamber of Commerce to encourage tourism.”

“What?”

“Only ice I’ve seen since I pulled into town is the stuff they put in my cup at McDonald’s.”

“Trust me,” he said, chuckling, “you’re gonna see ice. Plenty of it, and sooner than you think.”

“Hmm…I’m a ‘warm and toasty’ fan. Maybe I’m not made of hardy enough stuff to hack it after all.”

He turned her so that they stood toe to toe. “Homesick?”

Sam shrugged. “I’d be lying if I said I didn’t miss my family…even those rowdy brothers of mine. But I’d hardly call that ‘homesick.’ ”

“Didn’t they say you’d run home to mommy and daddy in less than a month?”

Sam couldn’t be certain, but she would’ve sworn she’d shared that bit of information with Olive, not Bryce. Either way, some busy bees had been buzzing, and she’d been the main topic of conversation in the hive. She nodded, proud that she’d already lasted months longer than they’d expected her to.

“Winters are the toughest for newcomers,” he said as his thumb drew slow circles on her jaw. “Twenty-plus hours of darkness is tough to cope with, even for those of us who’ve experienced it before. Add to that the unrelenting cold. If you can survive the first year…”

Sam nodded, understanding exactly what he meant. “I was talking with a woman just the other day who admitted that it takes her a couple of weeks to adjust, even though she was born and raised here.” Grinning, she added, “I suppose the jigsaw company manufacturers love us Alaskans.”

“Us?” he echoed.

“I like it here,” she admitted. “I like it a lot, and I want to stay.”

“Just to prove your brothers wrong?”

She studied the worry etched on his brow and wanted to kiss it away, along with his concern over the success of Rudolph’s…and whatever else might be troubling him. “I’ve already done that.” Shrugging again, she smiled. “I have plenty of other reasons for wanting to stay.”

He smiled back and said, “Good.”

As they walked hand in hand to the van, Bryce couldn’t help but wonder if he’d made a big mistake by bringing her here. It had been one of his favorite places in the whole world—and thanks to the marines, he’d traveled the globe—yet he’d never shared the spot with anyone.

He’d been nine or ten when Olive had first brought
him
here. It had been during one of his parents’ trips to DC to protest—he couldn’t even remember what that particular “cause” had been—but he remembered Olive smoothing a blanket onto the ground and ordering him to sit beside her.

“This is where I come,” she’d confessed, “when I’m feeling lonely and afraid, when I don’t know how many more challenges I can handle before collapsing under their weight.” Sliding her Bible from her bag, she’d told Bryce to find I Corinthians, chapter 10, verse 13.

“ ‘There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man,’ ” he’d read haltingly, “ ‘but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.’ ” When he’d finished, Bryce admitted he hadn’t understood a word of it.

“It means,” Olive had said, “that the Father knows you better than anyone in your life, so He knows exactly how much pain and pressure you can handle. And because He knows there will be times when you
think
He’s forgotten what your limits are, He gave you this verse, to remind you that no matter how tough life seems, He’ll always,
always
provide the strength to cope…or a door to escape through.”

He’d leaned on the advice—and the verse—more times than he could count. And returned to this
place
more times than he could count, to make tough decisions or escape bad memories.

“When’s the best time to see the aurora borealis?” Sam asked, interrupting his thoughts.

“Couple of weeks, I guess.”

“When was the last time you saw it?”

“Hard
not
to see it when you live here. It’s up there, every night for months…when it isn’t cloudy, that is.” And then, without knowing why, Bryce launched into a mini lecture, explaining that it’s up there high in the atmosphere, a miraculous blend of oxygen and nitrogen, molecules, electrons, and protons that moves in a colorful curtain against a backdrop of inky sky.

He heard himself droning on and on, sharing every fact and bit of minutia he’d learned about it over the years, knowing that he sounded like a monotonous college professor, yet powerless to shut himself up. And God bless her, Sam sat in the passenger seat, nodding and smiling as if he’d woven a tale that ranked up there with
Gone with the Wind
.

“Still feel like it’s a big deal?” she asked. “Or have you grown so accustomed to it, you sorta forget it’s there?”

“Depends,” he said with a grin, “on who’s watching it with me.” Hopefully, he could time it so she’d hear the distant, haunting notes of the train whistle while she watched them for the first time.

They drove in silence for a few miles—something Debbie had never been able to do—making Bryce acutely aware just how unlike other women Sam was. Man, but he wanted her to stay in North Pole, to learn to cope with the cold and nights of endless darkness and days that seemed to melt, one into the other. With her nearby, he might just learn to stomach the always-blinking Christmas lights and the maddening holiday music.

Sam exhaled a long sigh and then leaned against the headrest.

“Tired?”

“No, just drinking in that amazing view
.
”