Chapter Two

Holy bear daddy hotness…

Trace’s beard tickled her skin in a way that set off other tickles in every nerve ending her body possessed. Whoa. Had she ever kissed a man with a beard before? Izzy’s reeling mind came up blank. Nope. Never. And as new experiences went, this one ranked high.

It also ranked high as one of her most bizarre experiences—having a man she’d just met suddenly declare matrimonial intentions—but something in his urgent stare had implored her to play along, and her hormones, fresh off a near-death experience, decided to play. And now, that decision was paying off in spades.

His warm, firm lips stayed sealed to hers for a long, suspended moment, and then—good lord—big, blunt fingertips danced gently across her cheek. The cheek touch, somehow both absent and reverent, melted places inside her entirely separate from her tingling nerve endings. Wanting more, she surged up onto her tiptoes, and nearly groaned when he eased back.

She blinked her eyes open to find his shockingly-blue ones staring down at her with more than that work-with-me-please message. What lurked in their depths now looked a heck of a lot like…lust. Real lust. Not an act.

Before she could get a word out, his lips reclaimed hers, crashing down with hot, hungry urgency. Right. Who needed conversation? Conversation was overrated. Highly overrated, she mentally added when a big hand cupped her ass and pulled her closer. Without hesitation, she let go of everything she’d picked up so she could sink her fingers into his thick, unkempt hair. Heat came off the man in wave after addictive wave, sending a grateful shiver down her body while banishing chills she didn’t even know she had.

From somewhere very far away, a voice said, “Okay then. Good luck with that. We’ll just…go…put the Beaver in the hangar.”

Was there a whoosh of the door? A rush of cold air? She heard nothing except the happy noises coming from her throat, felt nothing but his scorching mouth, the solid strength of him, and…yes. Sweet baby Jesus, yes. Hard, hot, and heavy against her stomach, through God knew how many layers of clothing—a long, unmistakable ridge of bear-daddy dick.

It surged against her, attaining yet more impressive stature, and her inner muscles fluttered like new butterflies preparing to try their wings. Unable to resist, she skimmed her hand over his chest, down his flannel-padded brickwork of abs, and went questing between their bodies as best she could. Almost there. Almost. Her fingers literally itched to trace his dimensions. She stretched, and reached, and…

He released her, instantly, as if he’d been burned.

What the…? She opened her eyes and leveled them on him.

“I’m…Jesus…” He expelled a breath and ran his hand through his hair, pushing it away from his forehead. The sad, tired eyes were back in full force. “Sorry.”

Sorry? Was her mouth hanging open? Possibly. The man just planted on her the best kiss she’d had the thrill of experiencing in, well, her entire life, and then said sorry?

“I’d rather have an explanation than an apology.” Maybe that sounded a little terse, but the “sorry” stung. Especially since he’d spent most of their time together shooting her disapproving looks or ignoring her, but as soon as they arrived, he introduced her to two mouthwatering specimens of local bear daddies as the woman he hoped to marry and pinned her with a look full of dire importance. When she’d cooperated and suggested the kiss, he’d put his hands and mouth on her like he owned her. Kissed her like he couldn’t get enough of her. Generated so much heat between them that they’d both gone up in flames. Which apparently made him “sorry”? Fine. Great. Peachy. She thought back to a pink T-shirt she’d seen in a terminal shop in Anchorage. Alaskan Men: The odds are good, but the goods are odd. This particular example appeared completely on-brand.

“I couldn’t think of another way to explain”—he waved a finger down and up as he pointed at her—“you.”

His expression took on that edge she’d interpreted earlier as disapproval, but now, close up, read wary. “And you thought presenting me as your would-be-fiancée was the best solution?” She shook her head and took the large box of condoms he held. A yellow Post-it note stuck to the top of the box had the word Surprise scrawled on it in Danny’s distinctive flourish.

Ha. Ha. Danny. Good one. He’d love this story.

He’d love even more that his so-called “surprise”—and the dramatic public reveal of it—didn’t come close to qualifying as the biggest one of her arrival in Captivity. The mind-melting kiss from her uneasy and utterly unpredictable bear daddy client claimed that honor.

The bear daddy in question ran a hand over the back of his neck and winced, presenting her with a picture of pure, male awkwardness. “Sorry.” He bent down, started picking up her clothes and tossing them in her trunk. “Let’s get you repacked and loaded into our ground transpo. I’ll try to explain on the drive to Captivity Inn.”

“Fine.” If that sounded abrupt, too damn bad. He had her lady parts all fired up, he’d done it deliberately, and she had a sneaking suspicion she wasn’t going to like whatever explanation he furnished. Determined to reclaim a shred of her pride, she bent to retrieve the clothes she’d dropped. She’d packed lighter items on top, and they’d flown everywhere, but at least they were easy to gather. Bulkier items like jeans, boots, and sweaters remained, like ballast, under the stays in the trunk.

She reached for a handful of tights but got distracted by the sight of him picking up her scattered underthings. The lace and silk looked incredibly delicate in his huge hands. She watched, sort of hypnotized, as he tossed them into her trunk, then bent to scoop up more of her belongings.

This time he hesitated a second before grabbing an item and holding it aloft. Her mini magic wand. Maybe he wasn’t familiar with the brand, but the shape of the thing left little doubt about its purpose. One corner of his mouth tipped up in a faint show of amusement. Nice to know he could muster up a smile, even if it was at her expense. He walked over to her and held out the toy. “I’ll let you pack this.”

It looked ridiculously dinky cupped in his wide palm. The memory of his thick, hard cock pressed against her returned in full force, and all of the sudden she wanted to cry. Cute as it was, that micro-wand was never going to do it for her now. She took it, walked over to her trunk, and slipped it into a side pocket, though she might as well have marched over to the trash bin and thrown it away. Instead, she closed the lid of the trunk, and sat on it to secure the latches.

It took a few seconds for her to realize the latches hadn’t simply popped open when the trunk had hit the floor. They’d busted. “Dammit.” She blew out a breath and looked up at him.

“I’ve got the universal fix. Hold on.” He walked across the small lobby, past the sole ticket counter, and it into a darkened hallway beyond. This left her alone with the wolf. It continued to sit obediently, watching her with stunning crystal blue eyes, but stunning or not she intended to keep her distance. An animal that size made her nervous.

Lights flickered on from a closet or office along the vestibule, followed by the faint sound of drawers opening and closing. Moments later the hallway went dark, and he reappeared, holding a X-Acto knife and a silver roll of…

“Oh, no.” Shooting to her feet, she protested. “You can’t be serious.” The thought of super-sticky duct tape affixed to the trademark laminated canvas of her monogrammed trunk made her cringe.

He nodded. “You have a better idea? I don’t think all this is going to fit in your purse.”

With a small groan, she shook her head and buried her face in her hands. “I can’t watch.”

He made quick work of it, turning her icon of gracious travel into something that resembled a poorly repaired booth at a second-rate diner. “There’s a leather goods shop in town,” he said, and whistled for the wolf as she rolled her duct-tape-defiled trunk out of the terminal. “They’ll be able to fix it or sell you a similar-sized piece that will stand up to real travel so you can ship this one to the manufacturer for repair. Either way, we’ll cover the cost.”

Stand up to real travel? Was that a critique of her luggage? Evidence suggested he had qualms about her gender and her personal presentation, and on top of all that, he didn’t like her luggage? Forget it. The man could keep his bear-daddy dick and his disapproval. And his explanations. She would package up his damn air and freight business and get the deal done in record time so she could go home and collect her partnership. And she would enjoy all the bear-daddy dick Captivity had to offer while she did it, but she was through giving Trace Shanahan the time of day.

“Don’t worry about it.” Despite the slow burn of her temper, the outside temperature startled her. Sharp little snow flurries stung her face. She shoved her free hand into her coat pocket and wished she’d thought to put her gloves on. The wolf danced ahead of them, its loud, seemingly happy barks shattering the silent evening.

Yeah, yeah. The prospect of a blizzard excited one of them.

Trace led the way to a green Yukon with the Captivity Air and Freight logo and contact information emblazoned across the rear window. The engine already ran, which she deduced meant he’d activated some kind of remote warm-up mode. Polite of him. He popped the trunk and hauled her bag into it.

“Up, Key,” he said, and the beast hopped in as well.

Hell, maybe he’d warmed the car for the animal.

…

Trace helped Isabelle into the Yukon, then came around to climb behind the wheel. He wasn’t an impulsive person, as a rule, but acting on her completely off-the-cuff comment about starting with a kiss had been pure impulse—the only means that had sprung to mind to salvage a chance of preventing the town from knowing her true purpose for being there.

And it was a good plan, actually. As his potential fiancée from California, they could spend all kinds of time together, and no one would suspect he was up to anything beyond helping her get to know and love his hometown.

It had also been a good kiss. Technically, two kisses, and both had packed a punch. A mutual punch. He wasn’t so out of practice that he didn’t know when a woman came alive in his arms, or eagerly reached for his—

“Ooof.” Key bounded over the third-row seats and plunked his butt down on the floor of the second row, directly behind the front seats. His furry head popped into the gap separating driver’s seat from passenger seat, and he panted happily.

“Woof!”

Isabelle jumped at the bark, which made him feel even more guilty. Those kisses, no matter who’d made the initial suggestion or how mutual the punch, hadn’t been a fair thing to pull on her. She’d gone along, yes, and then been swept along, just like him, but the punch he’d felt might just as easily have been her fist into his face. Still might, and he definitely had it coming.

“Hush, Key.” Trace put the car in gear. The wipers activated. “I’m going.”

His passenger gave Key a wary look. “Does your wolf bite?”

Trace shook his head. “He’s not mine, and he’s not a wolf. He’s a dog. Part husky, part malamute. You don’t bite, do you Key?”

The dog lifted his nose to the moonroof and howled.

“That’s good. Good to know.”

But it was a telling question. Most visitors fell deeply and profoundly in love with Key. A king-sized white furball with an overabundance of personality—much like his owner—and a penchant for hyper-vocalizing didn’t usually generate concern from even the timid tourists. But now that they were in close proximity, he could see she was a little afraid of the animal. He could also see she was shivering. He reached across her and activated her seat warmer, then pumped the climate control on her side of the vehicle up several degrees.

She put her hands near the vent and sighed deeply. Her long eyelashes lowered as if she found the blast of heat blissful. After a second she leaned back and snuggled into her seat.

“Not a dog person?”

She glanced his way. “I don’t know. Never had one. He’s very…big.”

Or, from the other perspective, she was very not big, but fair enough. Key was oversized for the breed, and probably outweighed her. Why not be nervous around something larger, stronger, and wholly unfamiliar? “He’s also very well-trained. Key”—he lifted his hand off the wheel, made a fist, and tipped it back toward the dog—“bump.”

On cue, Key’s paw tapped his fist. “Good dog,” he praised, and offered Isabelle a smile. “Your turn.”

She squirmed around in her seat until she faced Key and held her fist out tentatively. Key, being his master’s dog, bypassed her fist and licked her face with enthusiasm.

“Oh!” She jerked back, gave a soft, self-conscious laugh that landed straight in Trace’s balls, then aimed a look at him as she wiped her face on the sleeve of her coat. “Jeez, does every male in this place just kiss a girl whenever he feels like it?”

Oh, yeah. That. He owed her an explanation for his behavior, but since he was turning into the drive for the Captivity Inn, he simply said, “Some of us have better technique than others,” and steered the Yukon down the ramp into the covered parking.

“I guess I’d need a broader sample size to confirm that,” she muttered, and turned to look out the window as he slid the car into a parking space.

Was that a challenge? He looked at Key and raised a brow. The dog cocked his head. Inquiring minds wanted to know.

Trace expected to help Isabelle out of the Yukon, based on her size, the manners his mother had drummed into him, and how close she’d come to taking a header exiting the Beaver, but she hopped out as soon as he cut the engine.

Apparently she wasn’t quite that high maintenance.

Trace got out, waited until Key jumped down, then shut the door and walked back in time to watch her round the bumper.

Or maybe she still felt protective of her bag.

He opened the hatch, lowered her slightly worse-for-wear trunk to the ground and extended the handle. “I’ve got it,” he insisted when she reached for it. To avoid a pointless argument, he simply turned, said, “Come on,” and started walking.

In addition to the underground parking that the inn had added during a renovation three years ago, they’d installed an elevator that took guests from the garage to the lobby. Most people appreciated the convenience of not having to trudge through weather to get from car to inn, but in a town where the progressives were committed to “slow change,” and the conservatives wedded to “no change,” you’d have thought Rose Iquat, who owned the inn, had proposed building a Vegas-style high-rise resort. Of the approximately 1,700 full-time inhabitants of Captivity, each one had harbored an opinion about Rose’s proposed improvements and as soon as she’d applied for the permits, she’d had to listen to every last one of them.

He’d just as soon spare himself that ordeal. He aimed to get the sale of his stake in Captivity Air fully negotiated and all but inked before he paraded it out for public comment. A certain percentage of people wouldn’t want a bunch of outsiders—especially outsiders from the lower forty-eight—putting their fingerprints on something as homegrown as Captivity Air, even if the deal improved things in the long run. Or the short run. The constituents of Captivity, Alaska took a skeptical view of advancements.

But they can adapt, he reminded himself as they boarded the elevator up to the lobby with Jorg Hendrickson. The lurch of the elevator unbalanced Isabelle in her pointy heels, but he caught her around her waist and held her upright. Key immediately went sniffing at Jorg. The seventy-something fishing boat captain had been one of the fiercest opponents of the “elevator scheme,” yet here he was, years later, contentedly parking his truck in the underground garage that would eliminate the need to plug in the motor block heater—though the inn also had plug-ins if they became necessary.

Jorg smiled at Trace, goggled at Isabelle, and placed a weathered hand between Key’s ears. “Hello, doggie,” he said, softly. “Have you been a good boy?”

Key knew the man kept salmon jerky in his pocket.

“Woof!”

“Yes,” Jorg agreed, rubbing his head. “You are good. Good boy!” He produced a dehydrated salmon chew from his coat and gave it to Key. The dog crunched in ecstasy. Jorg’s pale blue eyes shifted to Trace. “And you, big brother?” A gentle inquiry, as had been everyone’s since November, but now the question subtly leaned toward Isabelle. “Have you been a good boy?”

Trace shrugged. “You’ll have to ask her, Jorg.”

The older man grinned as only a widower of twenty-plus years would grin and turned his dancing eyes to Isabelle. “And you, beautiful lady, say?”

The elevator bumped to a stop. “You’ll have to ask me tomorrow,” Isabelle replied, endearing her to him all the more as she made her way out the open doors and through the polished wood and old leather of the lodge-style lobby.

Jorg let out a loud, uninhibited laugh and grinned at Trace. “I will ask,” he promised, and wagged a finger. “For sure I will ask.”

“Goodnight, Jorg.” He chased after Isabelle’s retreating form, while Key heeled like the good boy Jorg called him. They caught up with her as she approached the long, redwood reception desk the original builders of the inn had imported all the way from San Francisco.

Rose looked up from her computer screen as they approached and let the faintest of smiles bring a trace of Mona Lisa–mystery to the proud Native bone structure of her face.

“Hi, Rose, I think you have a reservation for—”

“Hello, Trace Shanahan.” Her dark eyes shifted to the woman beside him. “You have been busy, I understand.”

He took the cryptic observation to mean Mad and/or Wing had called during the fraction of an hour it had taken him to bring Isabelle to the inn and told Rose he had arrived from Anchorage with not merely a passenger, but a girlfriend he hoped to upgrade to a fiancée. Until he could explain his idea fully—and get Isabelle on board to continue the ruse long enough to get the deal done—the less conversation, the better. Currently, she stood beside him, her dainty hands folded on the counter, looking around the lobby like a small, exotic owl.

Before he could think of a benign response to offer Rose, Key whined and tapped a paw to the closed half-door built into the side of the reception desk that led to the hallway behind her.

“You want to go meet tonight’s dogs, K’eyush?” Rose asked while staring at her computer screen and typing on her keyboard to bring up Isabelle’s reservation.

Another whine and tap served as Key’s answer. Rose’s attention shifted to Trace. “Okay, Uncle Trace?”

He nodded. “Sure.” More beloved to Key than underground parking or even the elevator, the inn boasted a kennel and dog run for visitor’s pets, as well as local doggie daycare. Neither of those were new additions. He suspected the kennel and run had existed, in one form or another, since Captivity Inn had opened for business in 1883. Dogs had played an integral role in Alaskan history, and even the earliest settlers would have required a safe place to house them through rains, blizzards, and endless winter nights. “Have fun, big guy.”

Rose opened the door and added, “Sheba’s back there. Go say hi.”

Sheba, Rose’s St. Bernard, was one of Key’s favorite four-legged friends. The husky barked twice and took off down the hall that led to the back offices and, eventually, the kennels, the small indoor playroom, and the outdoor run.

“So,” Rose continued, in her clipped, businesslike way, “Ms. Marcano—”

“Isabelle, please,” she invited. “If I’m going to be here for several weeks, I can’t be looking over my shoulder for my mother every time someone wants my attention.”

“Isabelle, then. Please call me Rose.” She frowned at her screen. “Looks like we have you booked into a standard room.”

“That’s fine,” Trace said, hoping to hurry things along.

Rose tsk-tsked, and Trace found her frown redirected from the computer screen to him. “That is fine for a visitor, but not for a friend. Not for a special friend,” she insisted, and hints of exasperation glinted in the depths of her dark eyes. They disappeared as she turned to Isabelle. “I’ve upgraded you to a third floor suite with a California king and a view of the mountains. More comfortable and”—she skewered him with another pointed stare—“romantic.”

“That sounds perfect.” Isabelle’s smile went a bit dreamy.

Rose beamed at her, then narrowed her eyes at him. Under her breath, she muttered something unflattering in her Native language.

Well, Jesus. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans and stared at the polished oak floor. Was the entire town going to school him on how he should go about making his prospective fiancée’s visit to Captivity romantic?

Rose’s daughter, Delilah, emerged from the back, where she’d probably been tending to the animals. Somewhere along the line, Lilah had reached an age where seeing her always gave Trace a mild shock. His mind insisted on picturing a pretty young girl with laughing green eyes, light brown hair, and dimples—all courtesy of a father from the lower forty-eight whom she’d never known, given he’d passed through only long enough to charm a teenaged Rose into his tent for a night. But reality kept confronting him with a tall, willowy teen—no, scratch that. Tall, willowy adult, as she’d celebrate her twenty-first birthday later this spring. Her eyes seemed much more serious these days, and her dimples less prone to make an appearance. But they flashed now, briefly, as she silently acknowledged him and made a move to get something from under the counter.

“Lilah.” Rose held out a keycard to her daughter and rattled off something in Tlingit. He couldn’t follow all the rapid-fire words but gleaned enough to know Rose instructed Lilah to run upstairs and make the room nice for Mr. Shanahan’s du shaatk’i.

Special friend, of the female gender.

Lilah’s eyes widened and the dimples made an encore. Word was spreading quicker than he’d anticipated, and he didn’t have the foundation of this ruse firmly in place yet.

“No need. Rose, I’m sure it’s fine.” He swiped the key from between her fingers and patted Isabelle’s arm. “Isabelle’s had a long day of travel, and she’s anxious to, you know…” He led her toward the elevator and let the sentence trail off.

“Anxious isn’t precisely the word for what I am,” Isabelle grumbled so only he could hear and aimed a narrow-eyed look his way. The sort of look that said he had some ’splaining to do.

From behind him he heard Lilah say in Tlingit, “He’s in a hurry.”

“Not too much of a hurry, I hope,” Rose replied dryly in English. “That’s no way to impress her.”