CHAPTER ONE
I had no idea what I’d done in a previous life to deserve my current situation, but apparently, Karma wasn’t just a bitch, she was a sadistic whore.
Strapped to a shuddering seat on a prop plane packed to the tits with people, I was making the final leg of my trip to a tiny little town in the middle of buttfuck nowhere. If I’d had any choice in the matter, the first vacation I’d taken in years would be spent somewhere tropical, not at the epicenter of the arctic wasteland that was Sawyer’s Ferry, Alaska.
Unfortunately, I did not have a choice.
As we descended, hail pounded against the scratched plastic windows that separated me from the frigid air outside, and for a moment, I considered that dying in a fiery crash might be marginally preferable to actually spending time in the closest thing America had to Siberia.
But a few minutes later, the wheels of the plane had skidded across the icy runway and brought us to a safe stop outside an airport with less square footage than my dry cleaner’s.
I tuned out the flight attendant welcoming us, the sound of her perky voice eclipsed by the memory of my last conversation with my father.
“I’m a surgeon, not a babysitter,” I’d protested.
“That would almost be relevant if I’d asked you to babysit someone.” He spoke to me as though it degraded him to do so, and I was reminded once again how little he thought of me. “And if you were anyone else’s kid, you’d be mopping out the OR rather than cutting in it. You’re only a surgeon because I paved your way to become one.”
Anger flared through me. Sometimes I thought it didn’t matter to him that I’d gone to Stanford. Or that I’d made it through medical school without any help from him. He acted like he was the one who’d written my MCATs, performed my surgeries, completed my residency. No matter what I did, my successes seemed to push his expectations of me higher. Everything I’d ever accomplished, he’d done it first and he’d done it better. I needed to work harder and be more dedicated if I ever wanted to step out from his shadow.
“Frankie has arranged for you to be out on the first flight in the morning. You will travel to Sawyer’s Ferry, and you will convince Dr. Emerson to sign back on with Westbridge.” He slid the legal-size envelope across the desk to me without so much as a glance up. I’d already been dismissed.
I wanted to stomp my feet and protest that he couldn’t do that, but the horrible truth of it was, he absolutely could.
My father owned me.
I tried another approach. “I cannot be the best person for the job. I’m sure the offer coming from Theresa or Rico would be much more effective.”
This time he looked up, pinning me in place with his no-bullshit glare. It was the same one he’d given me when I’d told him I wanted to try out for the school play in the sixth grade. I resisted the urge to wither beneath it.
“No.”
“I can’t pick up and leave. I have to run an audit of the patient reports from the most recent study. There are some discrepancies—”
“Johnathan is more than capable of completing the audit. Don’t think you’re completely indispensable,” he warned. “There’s nothing that can’t be managed by someone else while you’re away.”
That stung, but I tried to ignore him. Even though I was an adult, my father’s approach to dealing with me was strictly of the “tough love” persuasion with a dash of “heartless dick” thrown in for good measure.
“And what makes you think Dr. Emerson is gonna listen to me?”
“Gage is not an unreasonable man, just misguided in his ideals. He responds to logic. His return to the company is the most logical decision both for him and for Westbridge.” I wasn’t so sure it would be as simple as that. “You will go to Alaska, and you will convince him to come back. And I’ll be expecting updates before 3:00 p.m. daily.”
“And if I can’t convince him?”
His reply had come without a moment of hesitation. “Then you can say goodbye to your surgical team.” He paused, whether to let it sink in or to think I wasn’t sure until he spoke again. “In fact, if you fail in this, you shouldn’t bother returning to New York. Your apartment will no longer be available to you, and you will no longer have a position at Westbridge. This is a simple task, and if it’s one that proves too difficult for you, then you do not have the capacity to be running your own department.”
My heart sank. I had absolutely no doubt he meant it. Blood may be thicker than water for the rest of the planet, but it wasn’t thicker than pride for the Prescotts.
I’d nodded and excused myself, and he hadn’t even bothered to look up as I walked out. At least Frankie, his personal assistant, had felt sorry for me.
“Daddy dearest in a mood?” Frankie asked, leaning forward.
“The brief meeting on performance reports I’d expected turned into Holden Prescott and the Chamber of Ultimatums.”
“That bad, huh?”
“If I don’t follow through with this excursion he’s planned for me, and somehow convince a man I’ve never met to do something he clearly doesn’t want to do, I’ll be homeless and penniless.”
“You seriously think he would do that to you?”
I shrugged. “Probably. He’s never reneged on a threat.” The reality of what I’d said sank in. A little part of me that hoped it was all bravado and bluster to intimidate me into falling in line.
“It won’t matter. You’ll do your homework, charm and bewitch your way into Dr. Gage’s good graces, and he won’t be able to resist you.” Frankie waggled his eyebrows as he slid an envelope across the desk. “This is your ticket to Ketchikan. You’ll connect there with your flight into Sawyer’s Ferry. Unfortunately, you’ve got a long layover—almost four hours.”
“How far is Sawyer’s Ferry from Ketchikan? Would it be faster to drive?”
“Nope.” Frankie shot me a sympathetic look. “No roads to Sawyer’s Ferry. The only way to get there is by sea or air.”
“You’re serious. No roads? What kind of backwoods two-bit place is this?”
He laughed. “Population’s just under ten thousand… I’m sure it has its charm.”
I wasn’t so sure.
“I’ve already checked you in and took the liberty of upgrading your seat to business class… for the first leg of the trip anyway. There is no business class on the tin can they’ve got you on for the second half.”
“Dad know you did that?”
“Nope, but he’s never flown anywhere in coach, and catching a flight at 6:00 a.m. is going to be painful enough without trying to jam those long legs into those tiny seats. Besides, he didn’t say not to upgrade you.”
If I did end up losing this job and becoming a vagrant on the street, Frankie was probably the only person I’d actually miss seeing every day. “Thanks.”
“The least I could do. Makes me feel less like a dick for booking you a one-way ticket to a frozen wasteland.”
“One-way?”
Frankie heaved an apologetic sigh. “Dr. Emerson doesn’t seem like he’s going to cooperate willingly, or he would have answered the hundreds of messages, phone calls, emails, and letters we sent. Who knows how long you’ll be stuck at the North Pole.”
“That’s… fantastic.” I was picturing myself crowding in beside a heater, clad in a down parka, huddling up to some elves. Briefly, I wondered if they served up anything stronger than hot cocoa in Santa’s village.
“Don’t worry about it. The second your mission is complete, you gimme a call and I’ll get you the hell outta there.”
I attempted a smile, but there was no way Frankie bought it.
“It’ll be fine,” he assured me. “But in case I never see you again, I’m taking you out for drinks tonight at Polaris.
Holding onto the idea that I’d be sipping cocktails at Polaris in no time at all was the only thing that was going to keep me sane. People bustled around me, retrieving their carry-on bags from the overhead bins and stooping to line up in the cramped compartment behind the door that would remain closed for another fifteen minutes. I opted to remain in my seat, dragging out the inevitable by as many seconds as I could.
While I waited, I booted up my tablet and opened the file Frankie had sent me. It contained all the information he could find on Dr. Gage Emerson—details of his life, both work and personal, past and present. The only thing missing was Emerson’s reason for leaving Westbridge.
Frankie’s words about charming and bewitching my way into Gage’s good graces echoed in my mind as my eyes focused on his photo. This was the hundredth time I’d gone over the file, and three things had stood out from my initial assessment.
One, Dr. Emerson was one of the most talented surgeons and brilliant surgical minds in the country. His resume was seriously impressive. He’d pioneered more than a few procedures in the OR, and the list of medical advancements he’d made with Westbridge was long and varied.
Two, he was goddamn gorgeous. Tall and broad and bearded, he looked like he belonged in the mountains, swinging an ax and living off the land. In my head, I imagined he’d fit right in with a band of sexy lumberjacks in the wilds of Alaska.
Three—and possibly the most interesting detail of all—he was gay. All that put together meant he was a walking temptation, but one I was going to have to resist.
I was here to do a job, and that was it. I couldn’t help but feel that this assignment was a test my father had designed to teach me a lesson of some sort. It was the only reason I could come up with for why he would send me. Whatever the motive, I didn’t think sleeping with the guy was it.
I could keep my dick in my pants. I could. Really.
The plane finally emptied. I stood, gathered my things, and exited.
The moment the cold hit me, my brain began to second-guess this whole fucking thing. As much as I loved my trust fund and the lifestyle it afforded me, I wasn’t sure spending time in a place where the air actually hurt was worth it. I tugged my woefully underinsulated jacket tighter around me and performed the human equivalent of tailgating as I hurried down the portable metal staircase and into the terminal.
Daylight was beginning to wane as I waited for my bag. There wasn’t a carousel, just one door and a wide steel bay to hold the luggage. I’d packed light, optimistically hedging my bet that I wouldn’t have to stay too long and within the week I’d be back on the plane home to my apartment in New York, where I belonged.
“Excuse me,” I said, approaching a man who wore a pale green uniform with the words Sawyer’s Ferry Regional Airport emblazoned on the breast pocket. “Could you please direct me to the car rentals?”
“You betcha.” He smiled, then stepped forward and shouted through the door behind the luggage area. “Hey, Glenna! This guy needs to rent a vehicle.”
Her reply came, muffled, a moment later. “He want a red Chevy SUV or a white one?”
“Those are my only two options?”
“Were you hoping for a sports car?” the guy said, looking me up and down and seeming to draw his own conclusions from my appearance when he nodded and walked away.
“The red one, I guess,” I yelled through the door.
Glenna, I assumed, emerged a minute later. She was wearing a matching uniform to the other guy and had the kind of curly hair that would have made the cover of Woman’s Day magazine in 1982. Like her colleague, she spent a moment looking me up and down. “You’re not gonna drive it like an asshole, are you?”
I shot her my most charming smile. “No, ma’am.”
“Good. Let’s get you the keys.”
The SUV was actually pretty nice, considering. A little on the older side, it had more bells and whistles than I’d expected from a car rental place with exactly two vehicles. There was even an onboard GPS to guide me to the hotel Frankie had booked, which was a whopping six blocks from the airport.
It took me a bit longer to get there because while stopped at the intersection of Marine and Hemlock, a moose sauntered into the middle of the road. A moose. He stood there looking at me like even he knew I didn’t belong there before he moseyed away.
What the hell was I doing here?
I drove the rest of the way to the hotel without incident, but with each passing block, more and more doubt crept in.
The exterior of Sawyer’s Ferry Inn didn’t look all that promising. The white paint was chipped away to reveal the shitty beige underneath, the awning was sagging in more than one place, and there couldn’t have been more than four rooms in the whole place. Clearly, it wasn’t the most popular destination because the parking lot was completely deserted.
I pulled into a spot near the front door and grabbed my phone from my pocket to send a quick text to Frankie.
Thanks for booking me in at the Bates Motel. If I get murdered here, please make sure you erase my internet history before my mother sees it.
His response came almost immediately.
It can’t be that bad.
The hotel or the internet history, because one is worse than the other…
The website made it look quaint.
I quickly snapped a photo and sent it through without comment.
Double lock the door, then, because that’s the only hotel in town. Sorry, babe.
I tucked my phone back away and killed the engine but hesitated before opening the door. Knowing it was coming didn’t make it any better when I was blasted in the face with freezing-cold air.
“Fuck this fucking place,” I grunted as I slammed the door behind me and hurried toward the entrance. The sooner I could get inside, the better, but as I turned the handle, it didn’t budge.
That’s when I noticed the sign. “Please call 907-555-3598 for service.”
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” I said, though no one was around to hear, as I dug my phone back out from my pocket. I dialed the number, and a man answered a few seconds later.
“Can I help ya?”
“I sure hope so. I’m standing outside your hotel, but there’s no one around. What are the chances I could check in?”
“Be there in ten.”
And then there was nothing but dead air. I hauled my ass back into the SUV and started it up, knowing ten minutes out in conditions like this and they’d have to chisel my frozen corpse off the sidewalk.
True to his word, the guy arrived in exactly ten minutes. He parked next to me, and I waited until he’d unlocked the door before I risked getting out of my vehicle.
“You’re the one who called?” he asked, slipping in behind the front desk.
“Yep. Holden Prescott.”
He stared at me. “Great. I’ll need a credit card and some ID, and I’ll get the keys for you.”
“You’re not going to look up my reservation?”
“Don’t need to. You’re the only guest.”
Of course I was. “Not a lot of tourists flocking to Sawyer’s Ferry, then?”
“You might be the very first.” I couldn’t tell if he was joking or not. I mean, he had to be, right? They did have a hotel, but the place looked like it hadn’t been inhabited since 1956. “All right. You’re all set. You’re in room two. If you need anything, give the same number a ring and I’ll do my best to help you out.”
I thanked him and took the key, attached to a giant orange plastic rectangle.
“Enjoy your stay at the Sawyer’s Ferry Inn, and don’t forget to leave us a review on Trip Advisor.”
He really, really didn’t want me to do that.
I turned as I reached the door. “There anywhere decent to eat around here?”
“Whisky J’s is two doors down on the left. You can’t miss it. They’ve got some good food. Or if you’re in the mood for some international cuisine, the Imperial Dragon is probably still open.”
I thanked him again and headed to my room.