chapter Five
“It’s actually nothing personal,” Nancy continued. “Gavin’s made Lydia feel important and she doesn’t want to lose her spot.”
“Well, tell her there’s no fear there. I’m a good cook, but I don’t like to do it and I have no trouble letting someone else scrub toilets.”
Nancy wrinkled her nose. “That’s not exactly the attitude that will work. Lyd does a lot more than that. Those things are on the side because she realized Gavin needed someone to make sure he eats vegetables once in awhile. She does all the clinic scheduling and billing, she troubleshoots any and all computer issues and she organizes Gavin’s life.”
“Oh.” Allie realized how her comment sounded. “Sorry.” And what was with Gavin harping on her about not being healthy and eating right? He needed his assistant to make him eat veggies?
“Just don’t…do anything and you’ll be okay with Lydia,” Nancy said.
Allie stared at her. Don’t do anything? Allison Ralston not do anything? Nancy had to be crazy. Or Allie was going to be. Either way, this didn’t bode well.
“So how did Gavin end up…here?” Allie asked Nancy as the other woman headed for the front desk.
Nancy gave her with a funny look. “A friend of a friend of a friend from vet school.”
Allie looked around. “He’s the only vet in…town?” Dammit, what was the name of this place? She looked at the brochure on the front desk about canine flea treatments. Denali Veterinary Clinic was stamped on the front. Was Denali the name of the town?
“He is the only vet in…town,” Nancy confirmed, mimicking Allie’s hesitation.
Allie decided to ignore that. “Did he build the clinic?”
“No, Dr. Happerly was the vet for years before Gavin. He built the clinic and the house.”
“He retired?” Allie asked.
“Passed away,” Nancy said.
“Oh.” Great conversation.
“When he found out he was sick, Doc met with Gavin. Gavin impressed him right away. Happerly didn’t have a wife or any children, so he left everything—the house, the practice, the equipment—to Gavin so that Gav could afford to move up here and take over right away.”
That made sense as to how Gavin could afford all that he had only two years out of school.
“So, he’s been successful…here?” Allie asked. Wherever here is.
Nancy chuckled lightly. “Yes. Of course it helps that he’s a veterinarian and everyone here is very dependent on their animals. They would need Gavin even if they didn’t like him.”
Allie wandered to the bulletin board. Maybe there’d be a hint there about the name of the town. Or at least a reason to change the subject. There was an ad for flight tours to Mount McKinley.
Okay. So that was a great clue. She was in a town near Mount McKinley. A mountain. A really big mountain. And if she were any good at geography, that might matter.
“This sounds great,” she said, even though she didn’t know where she was. “Have you ever done one of these tours?”
Nancy glanced over. “Oh, sure. Those are fantastic. Rob Ingalls flies one of those tours.”
“Is he good?”
Nancy gave her a wink. “He’s very good. And he’s a great pilot.”
Allie grinned. “Got it.”
Another flyer caught her eye. The photo showed a man in cold weather gear in the midst of a pack of Alaskan huskies. He had his arms around two of the dogs and was grinning widely. “Dogsled tours,” Allie read out loud. “These dogs are gorgeous.”
“They’re gorgeous,” Nancy agreed. “And our bread and butter.”
“The clinic takes care of these dogs?”
“Those dogs and all the dogs of all the other mushers around here,” Nancy confirmed, sliding the file drawer shut.
“You can support a whole clinic just on sled dogs?” Allie asked.
“We do other animals too,” Nancy said. “But around here? Yeah, we can support the whole clinic just on the mushing dogs.”
“There’s a lot of them?” Definitely not something seen in Massachusetts.
“It’s the official sport of Alaska,” Nancy said.
“It’s a year-round thing?” Allie asked. The flyer advertised summer hours.
“Definitely. Besides competing, there are tours year round and there are several people around here who prefer dogsled for local transportation. It’s cheaper than cars and trucks, cleaner than gas and keeps their dogs in shape.”
“Gavin’s been dogsledding, I bet,” Allie said. Gavin had always liked the outdoors, and there was very little not to like about Alaska from what Allie had seen so far.
“All the time. And he loves it. Obviously.”
Allie turned. “Obviously?”
Nancy pointed to the picture on the flyer. “Doesn’t he look happy?”
Allie swung back to look at the bulletin board. Now that she looked closer, she realized the smiling man on the front of the flyer was Gavin. “Yeah, he does look happy.”
Which made her heart feel heavier. Stupid. It wasn’t like she thought he was going to pack his stuff and hop on the next plane to Massachusetts with her. But it did emphasize that he’d successfully established a life here in Alaska and hadn’t spent too many nights pining for her. When would he have had the time?
“Tell me about the town,” Allie said, pulling her eyes from the huge grin on Gavin’s face.
“Which town?” Nancy crossed to the coffeepot and poured a cup.
“This town.”
Nancy leaned back against the counter. “Denali or Bend?”
It had to be Denali, right? That’s what the brochure said. But then why did Nancy ask it that way? “The one we’re in right now,” Allie said stubbornly.
“Technically we’re not in a town right now. We’re about four miles north of Bend, on Gavin’s twenty acres.”
Allie huffed out a breath. “Okay, you got me. I don’t know which town we’re in or near or whatever. What’s Gavin’s official address?”
Nancy chuckled. “Bend. Denali is the national park.”
Allie rolled her eyes. “Okay, tell me about Bend.” She’d Google Denali later.
“What’s to tell? It’s named because the very creative people who settled it noticed we sit at the bend of the river. It’s a tiny town in Alaska that caters primarily to climbers and outdoorsy tourists. We have lots of hiking, fishing and, of course, the mushing. We’re laid back, can guzzle beer with the best of ’em, and we all really like Gavin.”
“So we have one thing in common.”
Nancy grinned. “You can guzzle beer?”
“Nope.” Tequila was a different story, of course. She most definitely wasn’t laid back either. “But I’m crazy about Gavin.”
“Huh.” Nancy rifled through the folder in front of her.
“Huh?” Allie repeated. “What’s that mean?”
Nancy looked up at her and just paused for a moment. She evidently decided to go ahead with what she was thinking. “You haven’t been around. I’ve never heard of you. You didn’t even know the name of the town Gavin lives in.”
Yeah, okay, that didn’t seem like someone who was crazy about him. At least Nancy hadn’t mentioned the almost-marrying-someone-else thing.
“And you showed up in a wedding dress that I assume wasn’t for Gavin.”
Damn.
“Things with Gavin and I are complicated,” Allie said, hoping that would be enough. She didn’t owe Nancy an explanation, of course, but her comment sent Allie’s mind spinning back to the last time she and Gavin had been together.
They’d agreed that a complete break—no phone calls, emails or texts—was the easiest, safest way to go. If they weren’t going to make a life together, they needed to work on making two lives apart. As painful as it was to say good-bye, repeatedly saying good-bye after occasional phone calls or visits was worse.
“Well,” Nancy said, moving to the file cabinet. “Gavin’s life here is pretty simple.”
And the implication was clear: he liked it that way.
Allie could understand the temptation for simple, that was for sure. “Complicated” had been the main word to describe her life for a long time now.
“He’s only been here for a year,” Nancy went on. “So he’s still an outsider, but if he sticks he’ll be okay.”
“If he sticks?” Allie asked. “What do you mean?”
“If he stays.”
Allie’s heart tripped. Maybe he wasn’t as settled as he let on. “Why wouldn’t he stay?”
Nancy chuckled. “This is Alaska. It’s not an easy place to live. Not many people make it through their first winter.”
“But he did.” Gavin had already been in Alaska for a full year.
“Yep. Once.”
Not sure what to say about any of that—she was probably the type to whine through a long, hard winter—Allie turned back to the bulletin board, pretending to study the flyers and announcements. But she quickly found herself actually reading them and getting excited.
This could be a lot of fun.
There were flight-seeing tours—planes and helicopter rides up to see the mountains, complete with glacier landings. Glacier landings.
There were dogsledding tours of the area—even in summer. There were mountain climbing and wildlife sightings and fishing and hiking.
There was plenty to keep her busy and to keep her mind off of home. That and some hot, sweaty sex with Gavin and she’d be good to go. The winter was a long way off.
The door to the exam room opened just as she took a brochure off the board. Gavin looked up as she spun to face him. He came up short at the wide smile on her face. He smiled in return, handing the folder he held to Nancy. “What’s up?” he asked, striding forward.
“Mountain climbing.”
Allie knew she put more enthusiasm into her voice than was really warranted, but it was such a good idea. Just what she needed.
“What do you mean?” He looked at the flyer she was clutching to her heart.
“Mountain climbing school,” Nancy corrected, also glancing at the flyer.
“I don’t know, Al,” he said.
She felt her eyes widen. Was he serious? “Why not?”
“It’s pretty challenging around here. Climbing here is for pros.”
“I assumed that was why there’s a need for a school,” she said.
“But you’ve never climbed.”
“Again, I’m pretty sure that’s where the school thing comes in.” Oh, brother. Gavin never hesitated to jump into things like this. “And we’ve done some rock climbing.”
“Yes, rock climbing,” Gavin said. “Not mountain climbing.”
She rolled her eyes. “What’s with you?”
“I just don’t know if you’re up to it.”
Her eyes widened again. “I’ll take it easy.”
“You just had pneumonia.”
“I feel a lot better.”
“Maybe in a few days.”
This was completely out of character and it was freaking her out a little. She took a huge step forward and grabbed the front of his shirt as he said, “I thought we’d just—”
“What is going on?” she demanded. “I want to do something. I want to have some fun.”
“I thought we’d just…”
He trailed off as her eyes narrowed.
“What?” she asked. “You thought we’d what?”
“Curl up on the couch and watch a movie together. Just us. Nice and quiet.”
“Curl up on the couch,” she repeated. Her eyes narrowed further. “Will we be naked on this couch?”
Gavin cleared his throat. Nancy also coughed, but Allie thought maybe she was covering a laugh. She didn’t look away from Gavin to check.
“No. Not naked,” he said.
“Then I want to mountain climb.”
She was not going to lie on the couch and watch a movie. She’d go insane. There wasn’t a movie ever made that could keep her mind off of home and the disaster she’d left behind. She needed way more activity than that. Way more.
“Mountain climbing naked could be dangerous,” Nancy commented.
Gavin glared at her and Nancy covered her smile with a folder as she headed into the back room.
“I don’t think mountain climbing is a good idea.” Gavin spread his feet wide, making him look even bigger, and Allie knew it meant he wasn’t messing around.
She let go of his shirt. She wasn’t asking permission, but she also didn’t see the point in fighting with him. The mountain wasn’t going anywhere.
“How about the flights up to the glacier?” She grabbed another flyer from the board. “I’ll bet that’s pretty amazing.”
“I’m sure it is,” Gavin said.
His tone was a touch condescending, but she chose to ignore it.
“You haven’t done it?” she asked.
“No.”
“You’ve been living here, in Alaska, at the base of Mount McKinley, and you haven’t gone up and landed on a glacier even once?” She couldn’t believe it. “You’re the spontaneous guy, the one who’s always up for something new and amazing.”
“I know.”
“So…why? Why haven’t you gone up and done this?” She was honestly stunned. This was right up Gavin’s alley. She couldn’t believe he hadn’t suggested it to her. “This seems exactly like something you would—”
“I’m settling down. That’s what I want to show you. I want you to see that I can be serious. Husband material even.”
Husband material? What the—
Allie dropped the flyer and quickly backed up three big steps. “Wh…what?”
Gavin looked calm and cool as he watched her. “Husband material,” he said again. Clearly. Firmly. “I want to show you that I do regular things, can just be a typical guy. No one’s fun and crazy all the time.”
Ah, crap.
“I don’t want serious, Gavin.” She pinched the bridge of her nose. “God, I’ve had serious up to my eyeballs for the past year. Longer, even. I want fun. I want to be…happy. Not serious.”
He still looked unruffled. “I can be serious and make you happy.”
“No.” She shook her head adamantly. “No serious stuff. I want to see glaciers and mountain climb and dogsled. Not watch movies on the couch. Hell, I can do that anywhere, with anyone.”
“This is part of settling down,” he said stubbornly. “Normal couple stuff.”
“Oh, for god’s sake,” she muttered. This wasn’t what she wanted. She wanted to get lost in Gavin, with Gavin, like it had always been.
Normal couple stuff was exactly what she’d left behind in Promise Harbor.
“What’s going on?” she asked, looking at him evenly. “We’ve had a really good thing going for a long time.”
“Yes. And now I want a really great thing forever.”
Forever. That was right up there with husband material for giving her the heebie-jeebies. Not that she didn’t love Gavin. Not that she didn’t think she would still love him in fifty years. But loving him and wanting him in her bed were different things than wanting to live with him.
They’d never done the day-to-day, have-a-mortgage-and-combine-everything-in-their-lives thing. They’d dated. They’d had fun. They’d seen each other several times a week, and sure, they’d done a few loads of laundry and cooked dinner together from time to time. But overall, Gavin was her escape from reality. When the normal, everyday stuff got to be too stressful or too complicated or too boring, she turned to Gavin.
She didn’t want him to be part of the stressful, complicated, boring things.
Marriage was a great idea. For some people. But she’d seen what for better or worse and in sickness and in health and for richer or poorer really meant. Her dad’s accident, rehab and the residual effects had taxed her mom emotionally, physically and financially. Accidents and bills happened in life. Things like that would happen in her life.
She just would really love to have Gavin living in Alaska when they did.
She would really love to know that she could call him up, hop on a plane, and be wrapped up in the fun-and-hot-sex Gavin-cocoon for a few days whenever she needed it.
Not that she intended to be married to someone else and use Gavin just when she needed a break. Walking away from that altar and Josh—talk about perfect husband material—had felt so good, so freeing. She didn’t want to get married at all.
But a long-term, hot-weekend-only, get-away affair? Definitely.
“Gavin—”
“I’ve changed.”
Yeah. And there was the problem.
She closed her eyes. “I can’t handle any more change.” She needed something to be the same, something she could lean on. “I need something to be steady.”
“My feelings are the same, Al. But how I love you has to be different. I want it to be all day, every day. Not just the nights, not just the weekends. All the time, in every way.”
Even when they’d lived in the same city, their relationship had been “after hours”—after studying, after work, after her family was taken care of.
Now he was settled.
That sounded strange even in her head. Gavin had always been restless, looking for more, working his ass off. He hated when things came too easy. He believed in hard work and sacrifice. He even played hard. He did everything with an unflinching determination.
She sighed. Why did she think he’d approach her and their relationship any differently?
“You want to watch TV and eat pot roast and play Scrabble?” she asked. That would never work. It sounded so…boring. She would have never expected to be at risk of being bored with Gavin.
“Maybe dirty-word Scrabble,” he said, moving closer.
“I still want to mountain climb.”
He glanced at the board behind her. “How about we compromise?” He leaned to take a flyer off the board. As his arm reached past her, she took a deep breath of his scent. She wanted that. All over her.
“We’ll go to Anchorage next week,” he said, leaning back.
“Anchorage?” She read the flyer he held up. “The Solstice Festival?”
“Longest day of the year. Great excuse for a party.”
Hmm. Well, it wasn’t TV and pot roast. “Drinking and dancing?” she asked, reaching for the brochure that clearly depicted people drinking and dancing.
He held it up out of her reach. “No drinking for you.”
She grimaced. “Not a bad rule. Unfortunately. But dancing?”
“If you’re good.”
Before she could come up with a sexy quip about how good she could be, Lydia said, “No fun for you until you go see Eddie. I’ve made excuses for you for two days.”
Allie leaned around Gavin to look at Lydia. Geez, the chick could be soundless when she wanted to be. She could easily sneak up and scare the crap out of someone—or set up a booby trap. Allie made a mental note to carefully survey her environment.
“Okay,” Gavin agreed. “You’re right.”
“Eddie?” Allie asked.
“He wouldn’t go while you were sleeping,” Lydia said with an exaggerated eye roll.
“Eddie lives about forty miles out. I didn’t want to be that far away while you were sick,” Gavin explained, “but I do need to check on her.” He paused and tipped his head to look at Allie. “Want to come?”
“Yes,” she answered without hesitation. She didn’t care who Eddie was or where she lived or what was wrong with her. She wanted to get out of the house, period.
“Okay, let’s go. We’ll talk about Anchorage on the way.”
Things were looking up. This was way better than Scrabble.
But as soon as Gavin helped her up into the high passenger seat of his F350 and shut the door, she realized she’d made a tactical error. She was now a captive audience. It was a forty-mile drive. That would take a while. There were no distractions, nowhere to go. That meant the potential for a lot of talking.
She groaned.
Things were looking up. Gavin resisted humming as he got behind the wheel and started the truck, but just barely.
Taking Allie with him to check up on Eddie and her pups was perfect. They could be together; she wouldn’t be fighting with Lydia, drinking tequila or mountain climbing; and, best of all, she’d be a captive audience for a talk.
And Allie was going to see some of his real life—his grown-up, responsible, serious life.
He grinned and pulled the truck out onto the road before she could realize the same thing and jump out.
Besides, he’d be forgiven as soon as she met the dogs. Allie was as much an animal lover as he was. He couldn’t wait to tell her more about the polar bears, too. In fact, that was the main reason Anchorage had appeal for him. The Solstice Festival was a typical celebration—food, drink, music, staying up all night—literally. They had nineteen hours of daylight this time of year. Not that it actually got dark at all. And it was the first official day of summer. But it was a great reason to take Allie to the zoo and introduce her to his girls.
Neither of them said a word for the first few miles. Allie kept her head turned, watching out the window. Finally she gasped and turned to look at him. “I’m in Alaska.”
He looked at her with a combination of amusement and concern. “Yes, you are.”
She covered her face with her hands and rested her head back against the seat. “Omigod.”
He reached over and put his hand on her knee. “You okay?”
“No.” Her answer was muffled by her hands.
“No?”
Her hands came down. “I might be on the verge of hyperventilating.”
“You’ve been in Alaska for almost three days now.”
“But I’ve been ignoring it. Every time I start to think about it, I make myself stop. And if I’m with you it doesn’t seem to matter. But now…” she swept her hand toward the windshield, “I’m right out in the middle of it. I can’t ignore it now. It’s everywhere.”
He squeezed her knee. “You’re okay. I’m here. This is all good.”
She started shaking her head. “No. It’s not good. What about my family, what about my dad? And all those people. What about Josh?”
Dammit.
Gavin swerved to the side of the road, throwing the truck into park. He turned to her and pulled her across the seat and into his lap. “Breathe,” he commanded, rubbing his hand up and down her back.
She covered her face again and he tugged her hands down to her lap.
“Breathe,” he said again.
She did.
“Now look at me.”
She did that too. There were no tears. Just something worse that tore at him—regret.
“Oh, no,” he told her firmly. “You’re not going to regret this.”
“Just…what did I do?”
He cradled her face between his hands. “You came to Alaska with me. Have some perspective, Allie. You didn’t steal anything, you didn’t kill anybody. You didn’t lie to anyone. You did the most honest thing you could. You did what your heart told you to.” He would never forget how it felt for her to choose him in front of everyone.
She’d been pressing her lips together. Now they parted as she breathed in deeply.
“Kiss me.”
That wasn’t a good idea. He was weakening anyway, the longer they were together. Out here, far from interruptions, with that look of need in her eyes, it was almost certain he’d crumble. The old Gavin would have stripped her by now. To hell with proving he was ready for serious, ready to be everything she needed.
But the new Gavin knew how it felt to just stop, to enjoy a moment, to not rush and push and work all the time. Being with Allie, helping her through those times when she just needed to let go and feel free had been great. They’d had some amazing experiences. Fun, over-the-top experiences. But he wanted more now. He wanted to sit back, to know he could make her happy with less, without all the craziness, by just being him.
How could he keep up that exciting, spontaneous, take-her-breath-away pace forever? And forever was what he wanted.
“Allie—”
“When you kiss me, it all makes sense. I feel like I’m right where I’m supposed to be. I feel like I’m spinning out of control, but when you kiss me, the spinning stops.” She put her hand against his cheek. “Please.”
Well, f*ck. Like he had any hope of resisting that.
He pulled her in and she met his lips hungrily. She held his head still, her lips moving against his as if she couldn’t get enough. Her tongue slid along his and she turned to straddle him. Somehow his hands ended up under her shirt.
Just feeling the skin of her back wasn’t a problem though, he reasoned. But the moan when he ran his palms up and down the length of her spine was going to be a problem. Because he wanted more of that. A lot more. He moved his hands to cup her breasts, his thumbs stroking over the tips, eliciting an even better, deeper moan. She pressed down against him and he moaned.
“Yes, like that,” she panted against his mouth. “More.”
Another truck drove by, the rumbling on the road pulling Gavin out of his lust-filled daze. “Al.” He glanced into the rearview mirror as, predictably, the truck’s brake lights lit up. No one drove past without stopping to be sure all was fine.
“Al.” He squeezed her hips and shifted her back off of his erection.
“More,” she whispered, staring at his mouth.
“Later.”
She pushed her hair back from her face and said, “I couldn’t even bring myself to pick out my bridesmaids’ dresses.”
“Wh—”
“Hey, Gavin. Everything okay?”
Jeff Pinkett, the local mechanic, grinned through the truck’s open window. He leaned on the door, clearly enjoying what he’d stumbled upon.
“Well, Jeff, I have a gorgeous woman on my lap. Yeah, I’d say things are okay.”
Jeff grinned at Allie. “So, everything’s working the way it should here?”
She chuckled instead of blushing, and Gavin looked at her in surprise. She was usually all about not causing a scene or embarrassing herself—or anyone else.
“We haven’t checked everything out yet but I have no concerns at this point.”
Jeff hooted with laughter and Gavin found himself grinning at her.
“’Kay, I’ll leave you to it then,” Jeff said. He gave them a wink and sauntered off.
Gavin was sure The Hub—and therefore all of Bend—would hear all about it later. Truthfully everyone would love some gossip about him. He was straitlaced here. No one knew his family, his past. He had nothing to live down or prove. He could just be whoever and however he wanted to be.
As Jeff drove off, Allie started to laugh. At first it was just a giggle, but it quickly built and the next thing Gavin knew she was laughing so hard she had to wipe her eyes.
God, he loved seeing and hearing that. And with the way she wiggled in his lap, he felt it too.
She quieted after a moment and drew a deep breath. “That was awesome.”
She slid off his lap and onto the passenger seat, still breathing in deeply and smiling. He told himself it was for the best and put the truck in gear. But he knew if she wanted to climb back up, he wouldn’t fight her off.
“Welcome to Alaska.” Gavin adjusted his fly for a more comfortable fit.
“He didn’t seem a bit fazed,” she said, tipping the mirror on the back of the visor down to check her makeup. “Has he seen you like that before?”
“Nah. But it’s not uncommon to see moose and stuff getting frisky along the side of the road. He’s an outdoorsman.”
That sent her into another gale of giggles. “I’ve never been compared to a moose before.”
He snorted, his smile refusing to fade.
They drove without speaking for another few miles. Then she said, “See, kissing you always makes me feel better.”
“Kissing you makes me feel a lot of things,” he muttered.
She laughed at that too. “See? Win-win. We should do it a lot more.”
He had a feeling it was going to happen whether it should or not.
“You mentioned bridesmaids’ dresses,” he said, hoping to divert further talk about their physical relationship. His cock was still wondering what had happened to all the hot and happy feelings from just a few moments ago.
“Ah, damn, you heard that.”
“It was a little out of context,” he said. “It caught my attention.”
“I only told you so you’d keep going,” she said. “I thought you stopped because you’d remembered your rules about no sex until we talk about…things.”
“Glad to know you’ve been listening.”
“To your stipulations? Yes.”
“I prefer the term compromise. We both get something we want out of it.”
“You get two things you want,” she pointed out. “Sex and me spilling my guts.”
“You get two things you want too,” he said reasonably. “Sex and proof that I’m good husband material.”
There was a beat of silence, and out of the corner of his eye he saw her tuck her hair behind her ear.
“There’s that term again,” she finally said quietly.
He glanced at her. She was sitting facing him, with one foot tucked up under her.
“It’s not going away,” he told her. They were going to talk about what had been going on her life in the past year, but they were also going to have plenty of conversation about her life moving forward. With him.
“Where did it come from? We’ve never used that word before.”
“Husband?” Gavin had to relax his grip on the steering wheel. “You’ve used it with Josh.”
“Ah.”
She was watching him when he glanced at her again.
“Ah what?” he asked.
“That bothers you.”
“That you were about to marry another man? Yes. Does that surprise you?”
“No, not really. But I think it’s more about rescuing me than it is about wanting to take Josh’s place.”
He breathed deeply, trying to keep his cool. “If I thought you were happy with him I…” Would he have let it happen? The question slammed into him. If it had been some other guy he didn’t know? If it hadn’t happened right after her mom’s death? If he thought it was what Allie really wanted and needed? Was there a circumstance where he would have left her alone?
With her here now, he couldn’t imagine it.
“My dad cheated on my mom,” he said instead of answering any of those impossible questions. Hell, if he wanted her deepest secrets, maybe he should give up a few of his.
“What?”
“More than once. At first, I only knew about the one time I’d walked in on him in his office. I told him that if he didn’t tell Mom, I would. He believed me. The next day he told her about that woman…and all the others.” Even now, years later, his gut churned remembering the day he’d caught his dad with his pants down—literally—and the day he’d watched his dad break his mom’s heart.
Allie said nothing but he could tell he’d stunned her.
“And he made me stand there and listen while he explained it all to her,” he went on before Allie could interrupt him. “That was how he punished me for finding out about his cheating and forcing him to confess—he made me watch him devastate my mother,”
Gavin gripped the steering wheel and breathed, thankful Allie didn’t say anything.
When he relaxed his jaw enough to speak again, he said, “Apparently he was very sexually…proficient. And he knew that women held a lot of power. He not only slept with powerful women—like the middle school principal and the chair of city council—but he slept with women who could influence powerful men. He had an affair with the mayor’s daughter—thank god, she was twenty-one at the time. He slept with the superintendent’s wife and several councilmen’s wives, and even the mother of the high school football coach—he was a first-year coach and didn’t have a wife to tell him what to do.”
Gavin took a deep breath. It was amazing how good it felt to dump all of this out there. He had never talked about it to anyone. Hayley knew some of it, but not all the gritty details.
“None of the affairs were ever love affairs. It was all about sex. He was, apparently, that good. He was a simple, blue-collar guy who couldn’t buy everything he wanted to give us, so he found another way to provide for us. The women just wanted some great sex with a guy who wouldn’t expect them to wash his socks or cook him dinner. And in return, they pressured the men in their lives to do Dad favors—not that the men knew why. Women can be very manipulative that way, I guess.”
He sighed. “So, everything important my brothers or I ever had—a starting place on the football team, a spot on the honor roll, recognition by the local paper, a scholarship from the Promise Harbor women’s group—came to us because Dad was a boy toy for the powerful women in town.”
“I, um…wow,” Allie said.
He knew it was a shock. Allie had grown up in Promise Harbor and knew every single person he’d just mentioned.
“Yeah.”
“And he told you all of this?”
He nodded. That had always amazed him too. “I was sixteen.” He glanced over to find Allie’s mouth hanging open. “That’s why I didn’t get along with my dad the whole time I was in high school and why I left home right after graduation.”
“He didn’t stop?”
“Oh, I don’t think so,” Gavin said with disgust. “He sure as hell was never apologetic about it—not to me and definitely not to my mom. When she started crying, he told her to think about the life he’d given her and whether she would really trade all of it in. And he reminded her that it wasn’t like he never had sex with her. He said he loved her and the other women were just about taking care of his family.”
Allie wrinkled her nose. “Yuck.”
“Yeah.”
They were quiet for several seconds.
“It was hard for me to know what to think and feel about my mom after that too,” he confessed. “She didn’t yell at him—at least not in front of me. She didn’t kick him out, she didn’t leave. After that night it seemed that everything just went back to how it had always been.”
Then she said softly, “That’s why you’ve always been so good about taking care of me.”
“Yes.” God, absolutely. That also bugged the shit out of him. There was no way his father could have truly loved his mother. If he felt for her how Gavin felt for Allie, he wouldn’t have even been able to look at another woman.
“And that’s why you work your ass off at everything.”
He gave a jerky nod. “I had to prove that I could succeed without people doing me favors. Then I came here to Bend. No one knew me or my dad. No one owed my dad anything. I just came and did my work honestly and very well, and when they were happy to see me or appreciated me or trusted me, I knew it was because of me.”
Silence. Not a sound. Nothing.
But he was on a roll. “That’s why it’s finally time for me to be serious about you. I’m settled in every other aspect. I’m ready for this now too. For you.”
“You’ve proven that you don’t need your dad and that you can make a life without following in his footsteps. You’re a better man than he is,” she assured him.
“Yes.” And it was such a relief. There had been moments over the years when he wondered if the whole world worked the way his dad’s world did and Gavin had been naive to think any differently.
But his dad’s way wasn’t the only way to get ahead. And Gavin had proved it.
“And now you want to prove that you can be a better husband than he is too.”
He finally looked over at her. “Yes,” he said honestly. “That’s not the only reason I want to be with you, but I’m determined to be a good husband. Nothing like my dad.”
“It’s why you’ve always been so determined to make me happy, to make me feel special.”
“Yes.” He had to look back to the road, and he wished he could look into her eyes as he said, “When you love someone, you take care of them. You protect them from getting hurt. And you definitely don’t become the thing that hurts them most.”
She didn’t say anything, and when he glanced over she was crying. Again.
Argh. He hated that. “I’ve never seen you cry and now it’s like it’s a constant.”
She sniffed and wiped her cheeks. “I know. Sorry.”
“What are these tears for?”
“You just…” She sniffed again. “You couldn’t really protect me, or fix the stuff that was making me crazy with my family when we were dating—it’s not like any of that was going to go away—but you worked your butt off, as usual, to keep me from being sad or angry or frustrated. That was…” another sniff, “…really amazing. And it must have been hard on you not to be able to make it all better.”
He felt his heart squeeze. It had been horrible to not be able to really fix things for her. And trying to hadn’t been amazing. He’d needed to do it. He’d felt driven to find something, anything, to make her smile.
He had to change the subject. The topic of his father gave him a stomachache and made him want to hit things. “Now tell me about the dresses.”
“I couldn’t choose,” she said without any further encouragement. “Every time I thought I’d picked one, I’d wake up the next day and hate it and change my mind. Everyone was ready to strangle me. Finally it was the last day to order to get them in time. I couldn’t do it. I hated every single one of them. So my cousin Bernice said she’d pick and I said fine.”
“What was that all about?” Gavin asked. Allie loved clothes. She always knew exactly what to wear. She lived to accessorize.
“Well, gee, Dr. Freud, you suppose maybe it meant that I didn’t want to get married?”
He looked at her. “You knew you didn’t want to get married even when you were picking out dresses?”
She shrugged. “Yeah. But I ignored it. I talked myself into wanting to.”
“Did you have to talk yourself into saying yes to the proposal?”
She wet her lips. “I knew it was coming. Josh’s mom kept talking about how great it was that Josh was there for me, and how having me around meant part of my mom was always around.” Allie’s gaze went to the road in front of the truck. “Sophie was so sad. My dad was so sad. Everyone was so sad. But when we were all together, especially me and Josh, they smiled and laughed. I knew it was working on Josh. Ever the obedient son, I knew it was making him think.”
“You were thinking too.” Gavin didn’t mean for it to sound quite as surly as it did. But this was not his favorite subject. She had, after all, been the one to say yes.
“Yeah,” she finally said, quietly, “I was thinking too.”
He wasn’t sure he was ready to hear all the details about her thoughts. About how wonderful Josh was, how happy their families had been about their engagement, how she regretted hurting them by coming with him.
He had a twinge of guilt when he pushed harder on the accelerator, but was relieved to see the end of Major’s driveway. They didn’t speak as they drove the mile along the dirt road leading up to the house.
As they pulled in, Gavin looked over the house and yard through Allie’s eyes. Major’s place was like every other in Bend—or anywhere in Alaska, for the most part. There were three four-wheelers, one of the primary modes of transportation around here, parked along one side of the house. Further out by the trees were two beat-up, broken-down pickups. They weren’t just parked there because Major was too lazy to haul them to town. Everyone kept a hold of anything that could be used for parts. They called them “resources”. There were also stacks of tires in the yard. Some had studs for driving in the snow and ice that would hit in winter, and others that were kept on hand to replace any problems.
There were a number of buildings behind the house as well. A few were sheds that stored even more “resources”, one was the wood shed as Major heated his house with a wood-burning stove, and one, Gavin knew, was Major’s outhouse. He winced and hoped that Allie wouldn’t need the bathroom while they were here. That might be too far out of her comfort zone.
They pulled up beside the dog yard and kennel area. Gavin opened his mouth, but anything he would have said, if he could have come up with anything anyway, was interrupted as Allie asked, “Are those doghouses?”
It seemed obvious—there were dogs lying on top and in front of several of the insulated houses. But what probably made her wonder was that the houses were huge and there were ten of them. The houses lined the fence and opened up to a large, clean central area with bowls of water and lots of room for the dogs to move.
He shifted into park. “Yeah, those are Major’s mushing dogs.”
“Like for dogsledding?” she asked.
Gavin was so grateful for the new topic—one he was quite confident in—that he launched into a description of how the dogs were kept and trained.
Major mushed year-round. The sleds were for snow, but he had rigs for the warmer times and the tourists enjoyed it no matter what. Major got around almost exclusively by dogs or by plane.
Just then Major banged out of the gate to the yard with Eddie right behind him.
“I thought Eddie was a girl,” Allie said.
“She is. That’s Major. He’s the owner.”
She opened her door and started to get out. “So who’s Eddie?”
A woof and a giant set of front paws were planted on her stomach the moment her feet hit the ground.
“That is,” Gavin said, watching Allie gasp, then smile at the Alaskan malamute who was introducing herself.
Allie set her hand on the dog’s head. “Nice to meet you, Eddie.”
The dog gave another soft woof, then dropped her paws back to the ground. Allie laughed and turned to Gavin. “Is there something wrong with her?”
“She’s damned cranky,” Major groused from near the fence to the dog yard.
Eddie had always been particular. “She’s a new mom,” Gavin said. “Give her a break.”
“She’s a new mo—” Allie’s question was interrupted as five puppies came tumbling out of one of the houses.
Allie was through the gate and on her knees in the dirt with the puppies in under ten seconds. The five furry, wiggly bodies fought for space on her lap as she laughed and tried to gather them all to her at once.
No one seemed to care—or even notice—that her pants were white. Least of all Allie.
Gavin just stood watching. He wasn’t sure what hit him hardest—that she didn’t care about getting her clothes dirty or how breathtaking she was when she smiled like that. She hadn’t even reacted to the smell. The dogs were beautiful, but dog yards stank. Period.
At the moment, if she wanted to get back in his truck and take her clothes off, he’d be at her mercy.