Chapter Twelve

Clay

The next morning, they awoke to a landscape that looked like a Christmas card. Three feet of snow had fallen in the night. The storm swept through, battering the cabin until the middle of the night when the winds lessened and the snow began to fall in earnest. Now, everything was still. Clay stood on the porch with Ross, drinking from a steaming mug of coffee, watching Charlie as he struggled through the deep snow.

“That sure slows him down,” Ross muttered as he sat on the rocker.

“Charlie is an idiot with fresh snow.”

With every step, Charlie sank chest deep. He launched himself out of the snow, only to sink again. He barked happily until a chipmunk scampered lightly past. He watched it dart away into the woods with a mournful expression that made Ross and Clay laugh.

“Do you think my parents miss me and Syd?”

Clay turned to look at the boy. “Are you kidding? They are out of their minds worrying about you.”

He spoke without thinking. He didn’t know the children’s parents. All he knew was the mother owned a salon in Sitka Lake and the father had taken a job in the family’s construction business in Anchorage when they’d separated.

The four of them had been in the cabin for weeks now. There had been times when he noticed that Sydney and Ross moped and he’d simply given them chores around the cabin to get their minds off their predicament.

He’d tell them to sweep the porch, take an inventory of the pantry, or split firewood. At first, he’d only showed Ross how to wield the splitter. A few days later he taught Sydney and she’d done as good a job or better than her brother and, of course, went on to gloat about her superior skill.

Ross sat back on the rocking chair and rocked gently as he stared into the distance. “They argued a lot about me and Syd. I think they might get back together, with us missing and them so worried.”

Clay took a swallow of his coffee. What could he say to that? The ache in the boy’s voice caught him off guard. He found himself wishing for the same thing, for the kids’ parents to work things out. That they might come out of their stay in the cabin better off.

“Dad always says Sydney’s a smart ass and that I’m a dumb ass.”

The fuck? Clay tightened his grip on his mug. “That so?”

He couldn’t argue with the description of Sydney. She was a smart ass. The girl was all sorts of infuriating, but she was fun and funny and made all of them laugh every day. A few nights ago, she’d pretended to be a food critic, eating at a restaurant, commenting on the canned beef stew they were eating for the tenth time. She’d looked around the table, fighting off a smile and told them the stew’s flavor was unexpectedly bold. Provocative but not pretentious, and the restaurant’s ambience was pleasantly rustic.

She was even warming to Charlie and had taken it upon herself to groom him daily. She brushed his shaggy coat and trimmed the fur on his head so it didn’t cover his eyes. He in turn, had become totally smitten with the girl who called him “Fart” as a term of endearment.

Clay understood why someone might think Syd was a smart ass. She was. And that wasn’t all bad. But why would anyone call Ross a dumb ass? The words burned a slow anger inside Clay’s mind. The boy could be a dumb ass, like when he’d pried a lid off a can and sliced his thumb, but weren’t all ten-year-old boys dumb asses at least some of the time?

“My grades suck and I get into trouble at school,” Ross said. “I forget to do stuff at home.”

“What kind of trouble at school?”

“I forget to turn stuff in. Lose papers. My teachers say I never finish my work.”

“You finish your work around here.”

Ross turned to look at him, his brows lifted with surprise. “I do, right?”

“Sure you do.”

He smiled. “Will you tell my parents that?”

“Sure.”

The yearning in the boy’s eyes hit him hard, like a punch to his gut. For the past three and a half weeks, he’d focused intently on keeping Victoria and the children safe. He planned on keeping Victoria, making her his. Marriage. Kids. He wanted it all and he wanted it with her.

He hadn’t imagined what the future might hold as far as his relationship with the children. But the thought that their paths would part, and that he’d never see them again, never crossed his mind. He cared for them both. The realization came as a surprise. His sisters had children, but he never gave them much thought. Sydney and Ross seemed more like family than Lauren and Vanessa’s children. He considered that with a small pang of guilt.

“Especially my dad. I want you to tell him about what we did here.”

“Your dad, the guy who calls his kid a dumb ass? You want me to talk to him?”

Ross grinned. “Yeah.”

Clay drained his coffee. “I’d be happy to talk to him. I’m going to tell him to quit calling my boy a dumb ass.”

“Or there’ll be trouble.” Ross added.

Clay smiled. The phrase was something he’d tossed out a few times when he’d had words with Sydney. Not that it had made much of an impression. She’d simply rolled her eyes.

“Exactly,” Clay said.

“You know what’s weird? I do all the things here that I can’t do at school or at home.”

“Yeah?” He crouched down and whistled for Charlie. The dog was slowing down, exhausting himself in the deep snow. Charlie looked at him and made a feeble attempt to escape the snow drift. He barely moved and lay his chin down on the snow, looking pitiful.

“I get my chores done without having to be reminded. I read, like, an entire book every two days. Yesterday, I even wrote a story. Ten pages! That’s never happened before.”

“There’s not a lot to do here, is there?” Clay asked. “No video games or texting.”

“I kinda like it.”

Clay straightened and tilted his head as he studied Charlie. The dog lay in the snow, twenty paces from the cabin. He’d used up all his energy playing and now lay, helpless and defeated.

“I need to go get my dog,” Clay muttered. “A rescue mission for a tired pup.”

“Bet you’ve never done a rescue mission for a dog, huh?”

Clay went down the steps. “This is a first.”

“If you’re not back in two days, we’ll send a search party.”

Clay waded into the snow. It came a little past his knee but grew deeper with each step. “Remind me to get out the snowshoes. The cabin owner has six pair in the store room.”

“We need to make a pair for Charlie,” Ross called.

By the time Clay reached the dog, he was breathing hard from the exertion. Charlie whimpered but allowed Clay to lift him in his arms and to be carried back to the cabin.

“I think this guy has put on weight since we got to the cabin,” Clay said as he neared the steps. “Last time he was at the vet’s he was sixty pounds. Now, I bet he’s sixty-five or more.”

Ross stood on the porch, silent, staring at some spot near the horizon. Clay put the dog down and turned to follow the boy’s gaze. In the distance, a polar bear walked with two cubs.

“Shit…” Ross whispered. “I’ve never seen one in the wild.”

Clay watched, his blood chilling in his veins. He’d wondered about bears and worried about polar bears in particular. The sight told him that they were even further north than he’d suspected. The mother bear continued on her way towards the icy shelf that ran along the sea.

Keep going…

“That’s why I carry a gun with me,” he said quietly. “She probably wouldn’t bother us, but she’s got two cubs. Which means she’s hungry and protective. If she ever came near the cabin, I’d shoot over her head till she decided she had some other place to be.”

Ross didn’t say anything.

“You grew up in Alaska, Ross. You know this stuff, right?”

The boy shook his head, keeping his gaze fixed on the bears as they moved toward the water. “We live in a suburb. My dad doesn’t take me out to do stuff.”

Clay cracked the cabin door and called Victoria and Sydney. Victoria probably hadn’t ever seen a polar bear and the little nature-hater might not have, either, judging from Ross’s fascination. They came to the door and both drew sharp breaths.

Sydney brought her hands to her mouth. “Oh. My. God.”

Victoria just stared, eyes wide. A hint of her scent wafted between them, and unable to stop himself, Clay tugged her beside him. She stiffened but slowly relaxed against him. He wrapped his arm around her and rubbed her arm to warm her.

Sydney pulled her attention from the bears and watched them with an arched brow, before turning back to the animals. Clay held back a grin, knowing there would be some commentary about his touching Victoria. He wasn’t sure what the girl would say, but he was certain she’d make some remark. Eventually.

“The bears are so big, but they don’t sink into the snow.” Ross glanced down at Charlie, who lay, collapsed on the wooden planks of the porch. “Not like poor Charlie.”

“Their feet are different than other bears,” Clay said.

“What do you mean different?” Sydney asked.

“They’re bigger than other bears’ feet and webbed in a way that distributes their weight. They’ve adapted to the snow.”

“Wow,” Sydney marveled with a teasing tone. “Thank you, Professor Bergstrom…”

Clay smiled. “I like Polar Bears. They’re apex predators. Beautiful but dangerous.”

The mother slipped into the water, her cubs following close behind. Soon, they were no more than tiny white spots in the expanse of brilliant blue water. With the excitement over, the children went back inside, Charlie heaving himself to his feet and trudging in behind them.

Clay opened his coat and pulled Victoria into his embrace, wrapping the coat around her. They stood together, quietly, taking in the beauty of the fresh snowfall and dramatic landscape. Every few days, the ice seemed to cover more of the sea. He tried not to think about the brutal winter that lay ahead of them.

“Beautiful and dangerous,” Victoria whispered, repeating his phrase. “What’s the most dangerous animal around here?”

He lowered to kiss her, not caring if Sydney might be spying on them. “Me,” he said.