Wild Heat (Northern Fire) (8 page)

Delight bubbled up inside her. “I love this trail.”

“I remember.”

It was peaceful and not too long. One of the few easier trails that boasted as much outdoor beauty as those that were a lot longer and harder in incline. There was some raise in altitude on the trail, but nothing she couldn’t manage.

Even now.

“Thank you, Tack.”

“For what?”

“For giving me back a good memory.”

He rolled his eyes. “Drama queen. It’s just a hike.”

“You’re carrying the food.”

“Damn right I am. You think I’m going to let you withhold my snacks?”

Tack had never once had difficulty controlling his breathing or pulse while hiking the Skilak Lookout Trail.

Until today.

Watching Kitty slough off her somber nature step by step stole his breath and increased his heart rate with more efficiency than an extreme hike in the Kenai Mountains.

The closer they got to the overlook for the lake, the more her old joy sparkled in her pretty blue gaze. In the lightness of her step. In the way she reached out to brush the drizzle-wet leaves of a wild blueberry bush or the moss covering a tree trunk like she was greeting old friends after a long absence.

It had always been like this, hiking with Kitty. The destination was never more important than the journey, and they would take twice as long to cover the distance than he would alone.

Unsurprisingly, she stopped to take a picture with her camera phone of one of the many wildflowers along the trail.

“Do you remember how you used to
gather
wildflowers with that little digital camera your gran got you for graduating eighth grade?” he asked as she took several shots, trying to get the perfect image.

She would print the pictures off, then trim them down to a single bloom, which she added to a collage board she kept on the wall of her bedroom. She called it her
wildflower bouquet
and started a new one every spring.

Kitty grinned up at him, just like she used to, the expression so unexpected and different than what he’d seen on her so far that it knocked the air right out of him. He wanted to reach out and touch her lips, curved in the innocent pleasure in her surroundings with a lack of self-consciousness he hadn’t been sure she was still capable of feeling.

This was the Kitty who had captivated his young heart and lustful imagination.

Her summer sky eyes invited him to share her delight. “I wasn’t about to pick them.”

No. She might not be the conservationist he was, but Kitty was committed to keeping the wild beauty of Alaska right where it belonged.

“Are you going to start a new
bouquet
for this year?”

She looked startled at his suggestion, uncertainty almost pushing aside her newfound cheerful serenity.

Then the doubt disappeared and that happiness he’d once taken for granted laced her voice as she said, “You know? I think I will.”

“Good.” His voice sounded strange to his own ears, but she didn’t seem to notice.

Kitty held out her camera so he could see the shot she’d taken. “This will make a great beginning, don’t you think?”

“Yes.” But he was hard-pressed to keep his eyes on the picture when the bounty of beauty that was a joyful Kitty Grant stood right there.

“Isn’t it gorgeous?” she breathed, her focus on the subject of the digital picture. “It looks so delicate, but here it is, surviving trampling wildlife, frigid nighttime temperatures, and spring rainstorms.”

“Not all things that look fragile can be destroyed.”

She tilted her head back to look up at him, her expression still more natural than he’d seen it since she’d come home, but with a thoughtful narrowing of her eyes. “You’re talking about me now, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Two years ago, I would have argued, but here I am,” she said in the same tone she’d used to refer to the wildflower.

Out of nowhere, the desire to kiss her slammed into him with more power than a bull moose charging a rival. There was so much meaning in those words; they impacted him at a visceral level no other woman had ever touched. That place in his soul that realized Kitty Grant’s survival had not always been guaranteed. Yes,
here she was
, but she might not have been.

The need to connect in a primal way, affirming the reality of her presence, nearly overcame him. He could almost feel her silky lips under his, swore he could taste the sweetness of her mouth.

She cocked her head to one side, her red curls glowing bright in the on-again-off-again spring sunshine. “Is something wrong?”

He shook his head. If he opened his mouth, he’d blurt out something better left unsaid.

He didn’t do casual sex with local women and he couldn’t have anything but casual with Kitty Grant. She was the one woman he refused to consider a future with.

There was as much chance that she’d leave Cailkirn for the lure of the big city again than that she’d stay. A bigger chance, if he was laying odds and being realistic.

Besides, for all her smiles now, this fragile woman had a long way to travel back from broken.

“You’ve got a strange expression on your face,” she mused.

He could only be grateful she didn’t recognize pure, unadorned desire when she saw it. She never had back in the day, and several years of marriage had not improved her perceptivity on that score.

Which made him standing like a simpleton while she reached up to cup his cheek about as stupid as he could get in that moment.

“You always were the best this state had to offer and you still are Taqukaq MacKinnon.” Her words worked where all his self-control might have failed.

He jerked back, stepping away to put some distance between them. “The best of home wasn’t good enough for you, though, was it?”

There had been a time he’d been willing to offer this woman everything. But those days were long past, and he damn well better remember it if he hoped to convince her.

Kitty ducked her head without answering, her sparkle dimming just like that.

He stifled a curse, knowing he could have been kinder. Or just not replied at all, damn it.

She made a production of taking more pictures before setting off along the trail again, her silence of a completely different quality now.

Tack followed her, berating himself for the harsh words. Even if they were the truth.

She stopped every so often to take more pictures of flowers, bushes, a deer through the trees, the sad pall that had fallen over her after his words lifting bit by bit. And the regret that had been riding him for causing her to fall back to her more subdued self dissipated right along with it.

“Do you lead tours on this trail?” she asked when they were a few hundred feet from the overlook.

“It’s on Bobby’s schedule.” Which reminded Tack that he’d need to redo the schedule of available tours now that Kitty would be working for them.

She nodded with a tilt at one corner of her lips, nothing like the grin before but a smile nonetheless. “I thought so.”

“What does that mean?”

“Egan didn’t make it sound like you took tourists on the easy trails, that’s all.”

“He doesn’t mind doing a mix. But for me, the more untamed the better.”

“I remember that about you. I also remember you almost getting us lost snowshoeing one winter because you claimed that since you were part Inuit, you had a spiritual connection to the land.”

He laughed and shook his head at his younger self. “We would have done better if that connection was a compass.”

“Good thing I’d put one in my pack.”

He usually carried one, too, but he’d been going through a phase, trying to find his
instinctive link
to the earth. “I thought if I didn’t give myself a backup plan, ancient instincts would come to the fore.”

She laughed softly and gave him a fond look. “You were an idiot.”

“So you told me then.” In colorful terms her gran would have been appalled to hear.

“You acted like there were no old stories about the Inuit getting lost in the vast wilderness.”

“I wanted to be special.” He’d been fifteen and just realized that his feelings for Kitty were not familial or platonic.

He had thought if she saw him as her hero, she’d stop thinking of him like the brother he wasn’t.

“If you’ll refrain from throwing it back in my face again, I’ll tell you that you always were special. You didn’t need some mystical ability to navigate the snowfields.”

“Damn it, Kitty. When you threw me away, I was pretty sure you didn’t think there was anything good or valuable about me.” And it had hurt.

So much so that he’d vowed never to let anyone’s opinion matter so much again.

“Does it make it worse or better to know that I always knew how wonderful you were?” Her shoulders hunched, like she was trying to draw in on herself again. “I never doubted how lucky I was to have your friendship and I threw it away anyway. I was a real idiot.”

Which just confirmed that no matter how highly she said she thought of him, Tack hadn’t been important enough to Kitty for her to keep in her life. Not as a friend and not as the man in her life.

The reminder should have diminished the arousal her renewed good mood had sparked in him. But his dick didn’t care about the past or even his commitment to keeping a distance between them now.

His whole body was heating with a fire nothing but drowning himself in her could put out.

T
hey reached the overlook, and Kitty rushed forward to the edge of the rocky outcropping.

The way she turned in a slow semicircle, her hands extended as if thankful for the gift of nature, about did him in. Her soft gasp only made it worse. The sound way too much like what he imagined she’d make with his cock buried deep inside her.

“I let myself forget how beautiful this was.” She shook her head. “No, that’s not true. I
made
myself forget.”

“I don’t know if I could.”

“Desperation drives us when nothing else could.”

“Why did you have to forget?”

“Because I thought I was never coming back.” She never looked away from the awe-inspiring view before them, like she’d never get enough of it.

“You didn’t want to come back.”

“You’re wrong.” The words were quiet.

“You hated living in Cailkirn.”

She shook her head but didn’t reply, just kept her focus on the lake below and the mountains in the distance.

“You always said you were going to get out of this
backwater town
and never come back.” And she’d done just that.

“We were kids. I wanted life in the big city, away from the town I associated with losing my parents.”

“They died in Arizona.”

“And I came to live in Cailkirn right after.” She sounded so lost.

He walked up behind her, forcing down the need to touch but unable to maintain the distance between them.

“I didn’t have enough time in Phoenix after Mom and Dad were gone to identify it with their loss. It always felt like my grief started in Cailkirn, and somehow my life in Alaska was all mixed up in that pain. I wanted to get away from it, to get over it.”

“Leaving didn’t work.”

She sighed. “No, it didn’t work.”

“You still miss them.” He didn’t know why that should surprise him, but he’d never even realized as a kid that she missed her dead parents.

He’d only been a small boy and in his brain, she’d always been Kitty Grant, granddaughter to nutty Miz Moya, who talked to her dead husband.

“Dr. Hart helped me understand it was a wound that would probably never heal completely and that it doesn’t make me weak, or at least weaker than I already am.”

“You’re not weak, Kitty.” He couldn’t stand it anymore and put his arms around her like he used to when she stood here, looking off into the distance.

For probably the first time ever, he thought he might have an idea of what she’d thought about when they stood like this, sometimes for an hour or more.

And just like back then, she let her body relax into his keeping. “I loved Gran, but I wanted my mom and dad. I could never say, because I knew she was hurting, too, and in that way that children do, I thought it was my fault. As I got older, I became so used to hiding my hurt that sometimes even I forgot that the happy girl I showed to the world wasn’t always real.”

They’d been best friends, closer than he was even with his brother. How had Tack missed that underlying grief in the girl he adored?

“Your gran and aunts always said you adjusted to the loss so well.” He remembered his own mother commenting on it, on how strong Kitty was.

“Gran was so proud of her little trouper.” Kitty’s tone made him ache deep in his chest. “And if it helped her deal with her own grief, then hiding my own pain was worth it.”

Tack wasn’t sure he agreed with Kitty on that one. How much of her life the last eight years was caught up in her habit of concealing her inner agony?

“But I missed my parents so bad, Tack. I cried myself to sleep every night for the first year after moving here.” Kitty’s voice dropped to a whisper, like she was ashamed of the admission. “I’m not even sure when I stopped. I just know that I did.”

“I never knew that.”

She laughed, the sound mocking but still whisper soft. “Right. Like I was going to tell my new best friend who didn’t even cry when he fell off the top of the big kid’s slide that I washed my pillow with tears every night.”

It shook him to realize how much of her emotions Kitty had hidden from all of them over the years.

“You’ll probably laugh, but for the longest time, I was really jealous of Gran being able to talk to Granddad Ardal. I tried so hard to talk like that to Mom and Dad, but it didn’t work. I decided they were stuck in Phoenix while I was in Cailkirn and if I could only go home, they’d be able to hear me.”

He remembered Kitty telling him she wanted to go back to Phoenix and visit her old house. One of the only times he’d seen Kitty cry had been after her gran had told the little girl that it would be impossible because the house had been sold.

Miz Moya had gotten angry and told Kitty that nothing good ever came of going to the Lower 48. After that, Kitty started talking about someday moving away from Cailkirn and not coming back.

Dismayed at what clearly had been devastating to her child’s psyche, he said, “Your gran never meant to hurt you that way.”

“I know.” Kitty sighed. “Just like I never meant to hurt her by marrying Nevin.”

Letting his arms drop away from her, he stepped back. “You know, they took that slide out of the playground five years ago.”

The ten-foot-high metal monstrosity had been a child favorite and constant source of contention between the adults of the town. When one of the support poles rusted dangerously, they took out the slide rather than repair it.

“I bet the schoolchildren were disappointed.”

“Yep, but my mom was thrilled.”
Aana
had lobbied for its removal ever since that ignominious tumble, even though his da had insisted a few spills were no reason to take the slide out of the playground.

“She always was a woman of uncommon sense,” Kitty said with a smile in her voice.

Glad their brief discussion hadn’t brought back her melancholy, Tack let her soak in her fill of one of the prettiest views on the peninsula as he laid out a small tarp. Between the drive up from Cailkirn and the hike, it was past lunchtime.

“You ready to eat?” he asked as he put out sandwiches, a container of fruit, and what looked like two cups of chocolate milk.

In reality, it was a protein drink he made himself and used on his long hikes. He figured she could use the extra calories, not to mention the vitamins and protein.

She turned and took in the spread of food. “You brought chocolate milk?”

“It used to be your favorite drink,” he said, sidestepping the actual question.

“It still is, but it’s also empty calories.”

“Not quite and this isn’t, I promise.”

She nodded, inexplicable trust glowing in a gaze as bright as the blue prairie flax wildflower she was so fond of. “Thank you.”

Without surprise, he watched her set aside half of the sandwich and fruit he’d put on her plate. He’d noted her doing the same thing with dinner the other night and the slice of cake yesterday.

He’d taken that little quirk into account when making the sandwiches, using a denser multigrain homemade bread and adding a little extra turkey and mashed avocado disguised by the heaping portion of alfalfa sprouts on the sandwiches.

Even eating half, she would get close to a normal portion. Same with the fruit. He’d put about a third more than he usually would have on her plate.

He figured the fact that her original portions matched his would hide his intentions.

It seemed to have worked as she took a bite of the sandwich without saying anything. She made a positively indecent sound as she chewed and he had to wonder if he was going to be able to eat without laying her flat on the tarp and devouring
her
.

“You didn’t put mayo on the sandwiches,” she said with clear approval after chewing and swallowing a second bite.

“I hardly ever do when I’m packing food for a hike.” He’d also figured there was a better chance of her eating a full half of the sandwich if he left the mayonnaise off.

“It’s delicious. This is your mom’s bread, isn’t it?”

“You don’t think I made it?”

Kitty almost looked worried she’d offended him. “Did you?”

“No.” He laughed at her look of disgruntlement.

“Tease me at your peril, Taqukaq MacKinnon.”

“Oh? You going to get me back?”

“Aunt Elspeth may love you, but I’m her Kitty-dear. Just think of me as the gatekeeper to her cakes and cookies and we’ll get along just fine.”

He laughed, liking the feisty. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“See that you do.”

They finished eating in silence, Tack pleased to see that not only did Kitty eat her entire half portion, but she drank the protein drink too.

“That’s good. What do you put in it?” she asked as she put the lid back on the plastic cup so it wouldn’t drip remnants inside his pack.

“That’s a MacKinnon family recipe. You know we don’t share those, even with friends.”

“Right. Your ancestors did not bring it over from the Old Country.”

“Doesn’t matter. A MacKinnon created it.”

“You.”

“Right.”

“Somehow, I don’t see Gran MacKinnon adding it to her jealously guarded recipe box.”

“You need a better imagination, then, because it’s in there, right behind the one for pecan-praline shortbread.”

“I used to wonder what it would be like to have a big family like yours,” Kitty said wistfully.

“You adopted me as your brother. I’d say you got close enough.”

She smiled, the expression tinged with melancholy. “It’s not the same.”

“
Aana
and Da see you as another daughter.”

“They always made me feel welcome.” It sounded like agreement.

But something about the
way
Kitty said it told Tack that it wasn’t. “They love you like one of their own.”

“That’s a sweet sentiment, but not a true one.” Kitty wasn’t smiling anymore, but she didn’t look angry.

Just thoughtful.

“They missed you like crazy when you stayed in California.” Tack had practically had to beg to get them to stop bringing her up, expecting him to close the breach between Kitty and her hometown somehow.

Their sadness at Kitty’s complete defection from Cailkirn had added to his resentment over the years. His parents and grandparents had treated her like a member of the MacKinnon clan and she’d left them all behind without a backward glance, not just him.

“For a while maybe, but I was their son’s friend, not their daughter.”

“That’s not how they saw it.” He wasn’t sure why he was arguing this point so hard, or maybe he was.

The truth was, Kitty had hurt a lot of people when she abandoned Cailkirn.

“People say a lot of things they don’t really mean. If you believe them, you’re setting yourself up for disappointment.” She sounded like she had learned that lesson painfully.

“It’s not that way in Cailkirn.”

“Sure it is.”

“Not with me, not with my family.”

“Really?” Kitty’s gaze darkened with an intensity he didn’t understand.

“Yes.”

She could make up all the excuses she wanted for turning her back on a town full of people who had loved her, but denying their care for her wasn’t going to be one of them.

“So, if Shila went to college in the Lower Forty-Eight like your mom wants her to and she met a man she thought she loved, they’d just let her disappear from their lives without so much as a phone call to see if she was doing okay?”

“Don’t try to blame your years with Nevin on my parents. You’re the one who turned your back on them and our town.”

“I’m not blaming them,” Kitty said with enough fervor he had to believe her. “I’m saying that I
didn’t
have parents like Shila does, no matter how sweet the sentiment that I was another daughter to them. Your dad wouldn’t let Shila’s husband tell her she couldn’t come back to Alaska.”

“Damn right he wouldn’t.”

Kitty nodded. “He’d be down there in a heartbeat putting any man foolish enough to think he was coming between your sister and her family firmly in his place. Your mom would never have allowed holiday after holiday to go by without seeing her daughter. It just wouldn’t have happened.”

“Shila wouldn’t have let it happen either.”

“Maybe. Probably. No doubt she’s stronger than I ever was.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

Kitty went on as if she hadn’t heard him. “All I know is that the first time Shila’s husband cracked her ribs, your dad would have cracked his head.”

“Because he would have known about it.”

“Maybe. Probably,” Kitty said again, her easy agreement bothering him instead of making Tack feel justified.

“None of us knew, Kitty.” Sudden clarity hit Tack.

They hadn’t known because she’d been hiding her pain for the last eight years, just like she had as a child.

“No, I know, but that’s not really the point.” Kitty’s eyes glittered with moisture, but no tears fell. “Your parents loved me, just like a lot of other people in this town. Only
not
like they love you, Egan, or Shila.”

Before he opened his mouth to argue again, Tack made himself really think about what Kitty had said, the comparison she’d made. If any one of their children had checked out of their lives like Kitty had, for whatever reason, Malina and Fergus MacKinnon would have tracked him or her down.

No question. No exceptions. And they wouldn’t have let go, no matter how hard it was to hold on.

They wouldn’t have let Shila hide her pain, because she was their baby girl and nothing about her escaped their notice. Not even the looks she gave Lee Bount, which went farther in explaining his mom’s insistence on Shila going to college out of state than anything else.

“And I’m not saying they should have loved me like they do their own children,” Kitty continued, sincerity infusing every word. “God knows they never owed me anything. I’m just saying they
didn’t
.”

Tack did not know how to respond. His realization that Kitty’s point was valid didn’t negate the truth that his parents genuinely cared about her.

However, he could not dismiss the reality that Shila would never have been as alone as Kitty found herself after Tack left for Idaho State either. He’d never regretted his decision to leave California until now. He’d given up too easily and the woman he’d loved had been hurt. It didn’t matter that she’d pushed him away. Tack had been a stronger man than Nevin, even back then and despite their age differences. If he’d stayed to see what was happening, it wouldn’t have happened.