WILD MEN OF ALASKA

chapter EIGHT

“She’s calling you,” Hansen said, munching on the biggest strawberries Lucky had ever seen. He also knew, from experience, they were the tastiest too. Which was weird since if you were dead, how did you taste things?

Was it all an illusion?

Gemma wasn’t. And neither was that claim jumper Cub. What kind of name was “Cub” anyway?

“Lucky? Did you hear me? Your woman is calling for you.” Hansen shook his head. “You always were a lucky bastard.”

Hence the name. That was until he was murdered.

“Are you going to answer her or what?”

Lucky stopped pacing for a minute and faced him. Hansen reclined on a boulder with the bottomless basket of strawberries. His legs crossed at the ankles as he took in the splendor Limbo had to offer. Hansen might be content to stay here and not move on to that place others before them, and after, had chosen to enter. But Lucky wasn’t. He wanted to move back. And he couldn’t figure out how to get there. He thought he had been on the right track with seducing Gemma. Could he have been wrong? He didn’t like what he felt now. Like he could kill someone.

“So what happened to have you hiding here away from that pretty woman?”

“She kissed a guy named Cub. Cub.”

“Yeah, you already told me that.”

“She kissed the same guy. Again. And this time they both enjoyed it.”

“Wow. That sucks for you.” Hansen bit into another apple-size strawberry. “So why then is she calling you?”

“She’s not happy with me.”

Hansen set the basket of berries down on the vibrant green grass. “What did you do?”

“Nothing big, just tried to cool them off.”

“Chill in the air?”

Lucky nodded. More like an arctic wind.

“You aren’t to interfere if she chooses someone else.”

“She can’t choose someone else.” He was already feeling more for her than he had for any other woman. And since he’d glimpsed his future and seen their life together, how happy they’d been, the little people they’d created, he wanted it all. He’d been robbed of too much.

Damn it, he was owed.

“You know that this isn’t a sure thing,” Hansen cautioned.

“I know.” Boy, did he know. That’s why he was trying his damnedest to make a solid connection with Gemma. And he’d been doing a pretty good job of it until Cub had kissed her tonight. Flirted with her. Made her laugh.

“Do you really think ignoring Gemma is going to get you further with her?”

Ah, man. “Love has never been this complicated for me before,” Lucky grumbled.

“Sure, when you love and leave ‘em it isn’t complicated. It’s convenient. Everything you’re trying to do with that woman has complicated written all over it. But I will tell you one thing about women. You give them the silent treatment, and they will freeze your ass out. No one does revenge better than a woman.”

Lucky rubbed his neck. Didn’t he know it. “All right. Don’t wait up for me.”

Lucky found Gemma pacing a path in her carpet, dressed again in another sweatshirt with Rink Rats and opposing hockey sticks on the front, sweats, wool socks, and an expression that could freeze geothermal hot springs.

“Last time I’m calling you,” she hollered at the ceiling. “Get your ass down here, Dreamweaver!”

“Call me Lucky.”

She jerked and slowly turned toward his voice, muttering under her breath, “I’m not crazy. I am not crazy.”

“You are not crazy, Gemma.”

Her eyes traveled over him. “You’re really here?”

“Yes.”

“Why can I hear you but not see you?”

“I don’t know. I’m not up on how all this works. Like you, I’m learning as we go.”

“Why are you...visiting me?”

“For the reasons I told you last night.”

“I was your future?”

“Yes. My wife, my lover, my friend, and the mother of my children.” He heard the catch in his voice and tried to man up. He remembered her amusement with Cub about men being in touch with their feminine side. He got the feeling she preferred a man’s man. While he’d been light-hearted and full of Zen in his first life—he hadn’t felt that way in a long time—no way would he be caught watching Titanic again. Though he had to admit, Kathy Bates was the best thing about that movie.

“Whoa. Wife? Mother?” She dragged her hands through her hair. “Seriously?”

“We were to be introduced, but I didn’t make it back. If I had, that would have been it. As it is, I fell in love with you the first moment I saw you.”

“After you were already dead?” She backed up a step.

“Yes.”

“How? Who?” She shook her head, closed her eyes and took a deep breath. When she opened them, she seemed less flustered. Not much less, but a tad.

“Gemma, talk to Tern. Tell her my name is Lucky Leroy Morgan. She’ll fill in the rest.”

“What? How would Tern know?”

He lifted a hand and caressed the side of her face, glorifying in her response as she closed her eyes again and leaned into his touch. “I don’t have any more time, babe. Snow’s coming. Get some sleep.” He kissed her, trying his hardest to erase Cub’s touch from her mouth and memory.

His spirit slowly disintegrated in her arms as the snow outside turned heavier, blocking out the magnetic waves from the sun.