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Ophelia hid her car behind a snow berm, which had been created when the plow truck came through and shoved snow over a wild rose thicket. She got out and looked up at the rusty old building crumbling next to a small frozen river, the Old Mine. Beyond that, the Alaskan mountains loomed high in the sky.
The sheer magnitude of the mountains usually struck tourists first. To her, the mountains were commonplace, an eternal backdrop to everything she knew and did.
Movement brought her attention to a birch tree, its white trunk and snow-clothed branches blending it into the scenery. Adrian straightened from leaning against it, hands in his brown bomber jacket.
“Wow, you’re fast.”
He shrugged, walking toward her. “I ran. It’s a straight line on foot.”
“Are you into freerunning? I saw a video on YouTube. I think it’s so cool.”
Adrian nodded. “I’ll teach you how once we get your diabetes under control.” He climbed the berm, slid down to her, and offered a hand.
“Nice jacket.”
“It was my dad’s.” He pointed to a crown-design patch on the upper left chest. “British Royal Navy. He flew helicopters off an aircraft carrier, served with a real prince. One day, he took hostile fire from pirates in the Persian Gulf. Stayed in his seat until all his guys blasted the pirates and got out, but never made it out himself. The ring and the jacket are all I have of his.”
“Wow, he was a real hero. I mean, it must’ve been sad and hard growing up without a dad around, but you must be proud of him.”
“I am. ‘Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.’” Adrian didn’t look up but drew in a deep breath which made his chest swell.
“What about your sister?” She climbed the snow berm with him. “What was she like?”
“Amazing. Tall, beautiful, brilliant. She had a different father, but Mom never talked about him.”
Adrian took her by the waist and swung her off the berm and onto her feet. “I knew you’d come.”
“Why?” Ophelia rested her hands on his chest.
“I’ve seen the expression in your eyes in eagles about to be released back into the wild.” He took her by the hand and led her along the game trail.
She slipped, but he caught her before a knee could sink into the snow. “Sorry, my sister made me wear these boots and they don’t have much traction.”
“What’s your favorite color?” Adrian resumed leading her along by the hand.
The question threw her off. “Purple.”
“Why don’t you wear it?” He rounded a tree, lifting a snow-laden branch out of her way, and led her up a well-traveled trail to a rocky outcropping on the mountain’s side.
“Bianca says purple looks bad on redheads.”
“So?”
“She’d whine like a mule.”
Adrian laughed a little. “Try earplugs or headphones.”
“What’s your favorite color?”
“Royal blue.” His breath hung in a cloud around them.
He does look like a prince. Ophelia followed him up into the trees, feet crunching in the snow. “I love royal blue too.”
“Purple’s not far from royal blue and it harbors a secret passion.” Adrian smiled and didn’t look at her. His earlobes were very pink though.
She giggled and muffled a snort behind her hand. Clearing her throat, she decided to change to the subject. “Where are we going?”
Adrian pointed to a truck-sized boulder perched on the mountainside, white with winter. “See that big cliff beyond it, the one jutting out?”
Ophelia shielded her eyes with one hand and saw the pale gray cliff reflecting the light. “Yes.”
“If you look hard, you can see a clump of brush. That’s the eagles’ nest. They build it bigger and better every spring.” Round some stunted pine trees, Adrian led her to the boulder’s base. “Watch your step. It’s icy.”
“I know how to climb a rock.” Ophelia let go of his hand and gripped a crevice. Thrusting a toe into another one, she began to climb. On the second toe-crevice, she slipped right in his arms.
Adrian held her close, lips very near her ear. “Meant to do that, right?”
“Uh, no.” Still, she did not try to wriggle free.
“Right.” He knew the truth and kissed her ear to prove it.
Ophelia peeked back at him before reaching for the crevices to resume her climb. Maybe I should just throw my arms around him and pin him to this rock right now.
Adrian didn’t look like he’d put up much of a fight if she did. In fact, his grin said he was thinking of doing the same thing.
At last she crawled up onto the summit and stood.
He easily clambered up the rock and stood beside her. “Okay, wait right here and don’t move.” He took a couple of steps away, pulled a leather sleeve from his back pocket, and fastened it onto his arm. Adrian pulled a piece of meat out of a leather pouch at his waist and held it up. “Watch the nest.” And then he whistled.
At first, Ophelia saw nothing.
“Here he comes.”
A bald eagle’s white head peered over the nest’s edge. He hopped up onto the edge, spread out his wings, and launched into the hair, flapping once, twice, and soaring around.
Ophelia stopped breathing the closer the eagle flew. Its wings beat the air as it slowed and lit upon Adrian’s arm.
The eagle snatched the meat and gave her an imperious look.
“Oh, he’s beautiful.” She managed to keep her exclamation to a whisper.
“Hey, you’re my girlfriend.” Adrian winked at her.
“Oh, I am?” Ophelia didn’t feel at all cold in the near-zero air. “You think I like you so much.”
“Kissing under the stairwell kind of gave you away.” Adrian offered the eagle another morsel. “He’ll take the meat back to his mate and...”
The eagle suddenly cocked his head, shrieked, and launched back into the air.
“Someone’s coming, someone he doesn’t like. Martin.” Adrian yanked the leather sleeve off his arm and crammed it into his back pocket.
“Martin must’ve seen me leave school. You go, and I’ll stay behind and tell him I was collecting pine needles for a science project.”
Martin’s truck rounded the corner and tore through the snow berms into the woods.
“No. No way am I leaving you where he can get at you.” Adrian hoisted her up in a cradle hold and leapt right off the rock.
Ophelia swallowed her surprise upon landing. “Martin won’t hurt me, but he’ll kill you if he sees you with me.”
“Martin can kill me, but that’s all.” Adrian carried her silently away. “You’re much too valuable to kill or change, but he has more ways of hurting you than you can presently imagine.”
“What do you mean?” Ophelia whispered as the truck braked and the engine stopped.
“Martin can make you wish you were dead.” Adrian followed a moose trail into a thicket and crouched down just as Martin’s truck door slammed. He sat on an icy log and held her on his leg from behind, cheek against hers, legs wrapped around her. “I’m disguising your scent with mine.” He pressed a finger to his lips. “Be silent and absolutely still.”
Through a crack of light in the bushes, she saw Martin lift his head and sniff the air. Turning around and around, he scanned the area and sniffed.
Ophelia froze like a fawn. He’s hunting me.
Another truck engine roared up the backstreet.
Bianca. Ophelia hardly dared to breathe for fear it could be seen. She recognized the sound of Jimmy’s truck.
The old brown Ford braked and slid to a stop.
Bianca barreled out the passenger’s side. “What the heck are you doing snooping around my sister’s car?”
“I thought she broke down and wandered off.” Martin yelled back.
“She got too sick to drive, so we took her home, turtle-fart.” Bianca opened Ophelia’s car door. “Now, I’m just driving her car back for her.” The engine started up and she drove away, followed by Jimmy’s truck.
“Bitch.” Martin growled, got back in his truck, and left.
Ophelia let go of a long breath. “I love my sister.”
“Yeah, it’s good to have a sister watching your back.” Adrian touched her cheek. “Cold?”
Ophelia held up her gloved hand. “No. Not at all. My sister and I were born in Alaska. We don’t feel the cold like Lower 48ers.”
“The cold doesn’t bother me much either.” Adrian slowly pulled the glove off, finger by finger.
Ophelia could hardly breathe. Her bottom warmed his leg.
He intertwined his fingers with hers and lifted them to kiss. “Better?”
“Yes, much better, thank you.” Forgetting the universe swirling around her, Ophelia hoped with all her might his kiss would find her lips.
Adrian slid the glove back on her hand. “I’ll make sure you get home safe.”
“Adrian.” Ophelia gave him the same grin she’d given him after the kiss in the library.
“Oh. I beg your pardon.” Taking her chin in hand, Adrian kissed her with the lightest touch.
The tingles his kisses sent through her body made Ophelia very still for fear he’d stop. They were the tiniest kisses, here, there, all over her face, along her chin and over her mouth again. Feeling his arm around her back, she rested her hand on his shoulder and stopped breathing. She broke away, gasping.
“Are you all right?” Adrian’s fingers slipped up her cheek into her hair.
“Yes, it’s just I forgot to breathe.” She swallowed hard. “I’ve never been kissed like that before.”
“Is that a good thing?”
“Yes.” Ophelia nodded. “Very good, but...”
“But?”
“You’re supposed to warble in my ear and preen around my neck.” A giggle got out and then a snort trying to stop it.
His chuckles worked up into a laugh and he pressed his nose to her ear and made a throaty warble.
I’m going to die. Instead, she laughed out loud and fell over in his arms.
Adrian held her close and nuzzled her ear, pressing kisses up into her hair.
Die. Die. I’m going to...
Adrian covered her mouth with his kiss again and went on kissing her forever until he finally rested against her cheek, breathing fast. “My butt’s frozen to the ground.”
She sniffed his ear. “You make me think I can do anything.”
“You can.” He spoke against her neck. “Promise me something.”
Ophelia lifted her chin from his shoulder. It seemed a little early in their relationship to be asking for promises. “What?”
“Promise me you’ll never give up, no matter what happens.” Adrian smoothed fingers over her cheek repeatedly, the tension in his body hardening his expression.
“Okay. I promise.” Her bottom was still on his leg. “My dad will be home soon.”
He lifted her up with him as he stood. “Let’s get you home then.”
Ophelia followed him out of the thicket, hand in his, placing each of her boot steps in his bigger ones in the snow.
Adrian glanced back as he stepped over a rock. “You need to leave town. Get far away from the Brynners. The airport and road are out, but the Langdons have a helicopter.”
“I’m gonna ask my parents tonight if I can live with my grandma in Seward for the rest of the school year. But when will I see you?”
“It’s just over the mountain and down the Kenai Peninsula.” Adrian trudged on. “I have friends there. I’ll move down, too.”
“Your sister will let you?” She’d overheard him say his mother had died of pneumonia, so that left only his older sister to live with.
Adrian hesitated. “Perdy won’t mind. Anyway, Seward’s a step in the right direction. Much bigger town, organized police department, they’ve even got the state troopers.”
“You think Martin would follow me?”
“Seward’s the first place he’ll search, but the Brynners won’t get away with their usual tactics there.”
“Bianca says Martin’s probably on steroids to get ahead in hockey.”
“You’re the drug he’s addicted to.” Adrian helped her up the snow berm and caught her by the waist before he swung her down onto the icy road. “You’re skinny. You’re not eating right.”
“I try.” Her boots crunched into the ice alongside his as they walked home.
“’Do or do not. There is no try.’” Adrian spoke in his best Yoda voice.
Ophelia laughed.
It wasn’t far to her house, but half a block into it her muscles started cinching and dragging and she breathed through her mouth instead of her nose.
“Come on up, Buttercup.” Adrian scooped her up in both arms.
“Hey.” Ophelia clasped her hands around his neck. “Wait. ‘Buttercup?’”
“My sister used to make me watch The Princess Bride all the time. I got so sick of it.” He smirked and walked on, carrying her. “Remember when the kid said, ’Is this a kissing book?’”
“Yes.” She chuckled a bit. “And the grandpa said, ’One day you might not mind so much.’”
“He was right too.” Adrian kissed her cheek. “Your diabetes is out of control.”
“Don’t remind me.” Ophelia rested her head on his shoulder.
“No, I will remind you as much you need me to.” He tromped down the short hill toward her house, never slipping once. “Have you ever considered someone might be tampering with your insulin supply?”
“My mom’s a doctor. I think she’d know.” She saw the green metal roof of her house among the trees, the neighborhood playground and some old white cottages beyond, all of them draped with colorful Christmas lights. “Besides, who would do such a thing?”
“Someone with a taste for diabetics.” Adrian didn’t look at her. “This town has zero crime, except for the occasional bar fight. You know two diabetics have died under mysterious circumstances in the past eight years.”
“Diabetics can die easy.” Ophelia stiffened in his arms. “We can have a hypoglycemic attack and slip into a coma. We can...” She pushed out a sigh. “I don’t want to talk about this.”
“Fine, but you’d better start thinking about it.”
She did not want to think about it either, but she did.
A door closed, they were already home. The windows in her mother’s clinic darkened.
Dad stepped off the kitchen porch, big Christmas box in hand. His ice-blue eyes lit on her boyfriend and his brow raised. “Well, it’s about time.”