Chapter Eighteen

“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.”

“Hold on.” Danny’s excitement carried over the line. “Let me close the confessional.”

Izzy fiddled with her pen while she listened for the muffled thump of an office door closing. “Okay. Confess. Leave nothing out. Remember, it’s good for the soul.”

“I don’t know about this confession being good for my soul, but you know what’s good for my body?”

“Tell me.”

“Three orgasms.”

“Praise Jesus,” he whispered.

“Maybe four. The last one was kind of a double. I’m not sure how to count it.”

“With the bear-daddy?”

“Yes, with Trace.” She sat back in his squeaky office chair and eyed the closed door. “Which is why this is a confession, and you can’t tell a soul.”

“Your sin is safe with me. I’m so proud of you, Izzy. Jealous as hell, but proud. You left L.A. an overstressed associate in the midst of a second virginity, but you’ll return home a healthy, rebalanced, highly satisfied partner.”

“Yeah, as long as nobody down there finds out how I got so healthy, rebalanced, and highly satisfied.”

“Nobody’s going to find out. How would they? Wait. Don’t you trust the bear-daddy?”

“Uh, for the sake of my sanity, can we pick another nickname for him? One without the word ‘daddy,’ please?”

“Fine. Don’t you trust that big, burly bear?”

She sighed, but let Danny have his fun. “I do trust him. He’s probably most trustworthy man I’ve ever known, aside from my own father.”

“And me.”

She looked at the acoustic tile ceiling. “And you. That goes without saying.”

“But?”

“But nothing. I trust him.”

“Even though he lied to half the town, telling them you two were involved?”

There was that. “He had his reasons for the subterfuge. He doesn’t want to cause any unnecessary upset unless and until the deal comes together and he has answers for everyone about what the sale means for the town. He’s a total caretaker beneath the imposing exterior. People rely on him. Captivity would be sunk without a well-run airfield. No supplies in the winter. Fewer tourists in the high season. No expedient way to get to a hospital. His employees put their livelihood in his hands. His passengers literally put their lives in his hands. And they can because he’s trustworthy. And decent. And responsible. You know what he’s doing this afternoon?”

“After the four-but-who’s-counting orgasms? Hopefully resting up so he can give you four more tonight.”

“Nope.” Smiling as she thought of him, she swiveled his chair around and looked out the window at the gray day. “He’s out with a crew of volunteers, clearing trails so hikers this season can enjoy the natural beauty of Captivity without injuring themselves or the ecosystem. Apparently, he and a crew of locals see to it every year.” It was ridiculously easy to imagine him out in the woods, stripped down to a T-shirt and jeans despite the barely fifty-degree temperature, wielding axes, lifting and hauling, all ripped and sweaty.

“Uh-oh.”

“Uh-oh, what?”

“Uh-oh, do you hear yourself? You just sighed, Izzy. The kind of sigh that makes me worry you just doodled his name and yours together in the margin of whatever document you’re reviewing and encircled them with a big heart.”

Frowning, she swiveled back to the desk, realizing she was still holding the pen. “I don’t doodle.”

“Really? ’Cause I just sat here listening to you go on about how strong, trustworthy, reliable, and responsible the man is, plus he can stick the landing on a quadruple orgasm.”

“Well, he has all those qualities.”

“Maybe, but please don’t fall for him. Promise me.”

“I’m not falling for him. I like him. I enjoy spending time with him, but I am not going to fall for him.” Of course, she wasn’t. The air backed up uncomfortably in her lungs. Was she?

“Good.” Danny sounded genuinely relieved. “It’s not that I don’t want to lose you to Captivity—though I don’t—but as much as you enjoy going wild with the bear for a few weeks, can you honestly see yourself living there, city girl?”

“I don’t know.” Even she heard the irritation in her voice. “It’s beautiful here, in a rustic, unspoiled way.”

“Izzy, I’m staring at a screensaver of your terrified face as you fled for your life from a pack of killer waterfowl. They have bears—the real kind, not just the kind that can make you come by brushing up against you in a flannel shirt. Wolves. Caribou. Long, dark winters. Honey, it’s the rugged outdoors. They have accidents and fatalities all the time. I looked up the stats. People take headers off snowy slopes. They fall through ice into freezing water. They get lost on a hike and are never heard from again. Young people. Active people. People who know their way around the wilderness. For you? Guaranteed deathtrap.”

“I’m not completely helpless or hopeless when it comes to outdoorsy stuff, and I would never do anything even remotely dangerous without someone who knew what they were doing by my side.” She thought about snowshoeing with Trace that first morning and almost said, Trace would never let anything happen to me, but then she thought about his brother. Shay. Native son, experienced outdoorsman, dead at twenty-five. Things happened.

Unaccountably shaken by the thought, and accountably annoyed by Danny’s perhaps not totally unreasonable lack of faith in her ability to thrive anywhere that didn’t have a Whole Foods and a Lululemon, she cranked the stupid space heater down a degree and tossed her pen onto the desk. “Anyway, this is a pointless conversation. I’m only in Captivity temporarily, I’m not planning any outdoor adventures while I’m here, and I’m not going to fall for Trace Shanahan.”

“Glad to hear it. Especially since your temporary Captivity might be ending sooner rather than later.”

“What?” Ending sooner? Why? And were those needles of panic pricking her skin because something might be killing the deal—and her shot at a partnership—or because ending sooner meant she’d say goodbye to Trace sooner than she’d counted on?

“It’s all good,” Danny said. “I think Chuck was going to email you this afternoon, but from what he told me, the buyer wants to accelerate the timeline. I guess he’s happy with everything he’s seen so far and asked his firm to cut back on the diligence requests and start negotiating the deal. Chuck will send over the purchase agreement as soon as he receives it.”

“Oh.” She tapped her laptop to life and scanned her emails. One from Chuck sat at the top of the inbox. “Do you know…” She had to stop and sip a quick breath. “Do you know if he wants me to fly home to do that? I mean, in theory, I don’t have to be here to negotiate.” This was good news. Great news. So why was her stomach sinking like the Titanic?

“I don’t think so. There are a few more items on the due diligence checklist that they do want to see, and Chuck definitely wants your touch on how those documents are organized, summarized, and presented. Beyond that, I think your, ahem, client, is singing your praises. Chuck told me it’s been valuable to have you there, on site, spearheading everything for our side of the deal, and I don’t think he anticipates handling the purchase agreement negotiations any differently.”

“Okay. All right.” Her sinking stomach stabilized. “Then that’s what I’ll do.”

“They’re serious about taking a fast-track. Pack those bags, baby, and get ready to come back here and Cristal-christen your new corner office. This guy wants to ink the deal in a couple weeks.”

“A couple weeks? I-I haven’t even seen an updated term sheet yet, much less the contract. There are still a number of open issues to lock down—”

“I’m just telling you what the guy wants, not giving you a hard and fast timeline. But the good news is, he’s tipped his hand completely. I mean, if he wants this done that quickly, so badly, I have a funny feeling all those open issues are going to go your way. Right?”

Yeah, he had a point, but as she ended the call, she also faced another important implication. Her time in Captivity was winding down.

…

Trace buried his axe blade into one of the fallen spruce limbs they’d cleared and stacked by the trail. With half an ear he listened to Lenna and her husband Tom talk with Jorg, Annie Watkins, and Rose about their vacation in Seattle while they hoed overgrown brush from the trail. The whine of chainsaws Wing and Mad wielded on bigger fells higher up the winding path blurred the conversation a bit, but that was okay. He’d already caught the highlights while flying them home that morning.

They’d visited their son and his wife, played with the new grandbaby. They sounded happy. He’d considered whether his parents ever wondered when the hell he or Bridget would give them grandkids. That, strangely, had led his thoughts to Izzy and their bedtime story and how anxious he’d been to see if they could switch things from fantasy to reality.

Memories of this morning with Izzy made him smile to himself as he chopped wood. Switch accomplished. Epically and irrevocably. Before his mind made much progress on how to follow up on the morning’s epic-ness with some evening epic-ness, the chainsaws suddenly shut off, and Lenna’s words carried to him clearly.

“…can’t wait to meet the woman who captured the boss’s heart.”

“I swear, you leave town for two weeks, and next thing you know, they’ve painted the library hazard-cone orange, and Trace’s got himself a love life,” Tom grumbled.

“She’s really sweet,” Annie said, and Rose agreed. “City girl. Very beautiful.”

“Sexy,” Jorg corrected.

Lenna laughed. “I think Jorg has it right, at least where Trace is concerned. When he dropped us off at home this morning, he was like”—she mimicked driving fast and furious, then did a sound effect for screeching brakes—“here’s your house.” She threw two hands worth of imaginary luggage. “Your bags. Go.”

“I think I have a boot mark on my ass from where he kicked us out of the car,” Tom said.

“One night in Anchorage and he was in a verrrrry big hurry to get home,” Lenna agreed. “He missed someone badly, and I don’t think it was Key.”

Everyone laughed. Fine. Whatever. At least now nobody thought he was falling short of making Izzy’s trip worthwhile. He swung the ax down, leaned the handle against a standing tree, and stretched. “I was just trying to get you guys home expediently. Figured you night be tired after a red-eye from Seattle.” So saying, he turned and started up the hill, away from the trail.

“Hey, where’re you going?” Rose called after him. “We’re not done yet. I need to tell everyone about the phone call Lilah overheard while she stayed over at your place last night. Come back here.”

He rolled his eyes heavenward and kept walking but raised a hand to his ear. “You hear that?”

“What?” Rose replied. “I hear nothing.”

“Really? I hear nature calling. Do you all plan to listen in on that as well?” There were absolutely no boundaries in a small town.

“Naw.” Tom laughed. “I think I’d rather hear about the other call.”

Great. He climbed a fair distance away, went behind an outcropping of rocks that pretty well walled-off the section of woods, unzipped his fly, and aimed for the base of a cottonwood. Sighing, he relaxed his shoulders and stared off into the distance.

“Heyyyy…” A voice faded in from lightyears away to just over his shoulder. He jumped, turned, and…

Oh fuck. Not again. Not now, in broad daylight. Was he daydreaming?

His dead brother’s form wavered there, less than an arm’s length from him, wearing the navy blue worsted wool peacoat Bridget had given him for his birthday—and Shay had “borrowed” without thinking to ask first—the sturdy old Crispi hunting boots he’d called his “lucky” boots for reasons that had nothing to do with hunting, and the devil-may-care smile that accounted for more of Shay’s enduring lucky streak than the boots.

“Not good,” Trace muttered, hoping the sound of his own voice would snap reality back into place. It didn’t. Shay continued to fade in and fade out like a…spirit? Hallucination? A delusion brought on by a psychotic break? His head suddenly felt like a helium balloon. That was new. He mustered enough wherewithal to zip his pants. He didn’t want to pass out in the woods with his dick hanging out.

Already dreading the experiment, he opened his mouth and forced the name past his numb lips. “Shay?” His voice sounded hollow and far away.

“Yeah. Give me a second. Dang it. I suck as this materializing business.”

Oh God. It answered. Shay answered. Which was impossible, and yet he sounded just like himself. The parts of Trace’s nervous system in charge of keeping him from going timber like a two hundred-year-old tree with rotted roots started shutting down. “I’m…out.” He didn’t know if he was warning himself, his dead brother, or any small animals that happened to be in his path, but he knew his brain took a long, slow swim around inside his skull, his eyes found the treetops, and then the gray sky, and then…just gray. Cloudy gray, with little black dots that flickered like gnats across his vision.

Shay’s voice came again, a little farther away. “Don’t do that. Shit. I can’t seem to…get a…fix on this place. Sorry. I’ll be back. Later.”

“Please no,” he mumbled, or thought he did, and then everything went blank.