Chapter Two

Clay

Bacon sizzled in the pan and the cabin filled with the savory aroma of breakfast.

“Easy come, easy go, huh Charlie?”

The dog’s tail thumped against the wall as he wagged it, lying next to the kitchen table, anticipating his breakfast. Clay scooped a cup into the bag of dog food and poured it into the bowl. Charlie gazed at Clay, eyes wide, ears at attention, waiting for his master’s command. Even though he was young he had been a fast learner.

“Good boy.”

Charlie got to his feet and moved quickly to the bowl, driving his snout into the food like it was a steak cooked medium rare and not just dry kibble.

“You’d a liked to run with her if I hadn’t been throwing the stick.”

Clay took a dozen eggs from the fridge and cracked four into the skillet, his thoughts drifting back to Victoria and the ways she’d looked that morning on her run. Even without makeup she took his breath.

He imagined where she’d be soon, crossing the small regional airport, pulling her suitcase behind her. She’d need help with her luggage. He’d seen her when she arrived, the bellboy pushing the cart piled high with suitcases, a stupid fucking smile on his face while he watched her ass.

Her ass, admittedly, was pretty damn fine, but that didn’t give the bellboy the right to check it out. Or any other man.

He looked out the window to the slate roof of the Lodge in the distance. She was in one of the fifty rooms. He tried to picture her in her suite, getting dressed for a day of travel. Some tight little skirt. A pair of sexy-as-fuck heels. Her hair swept up with just a few tendrils escaping to cling to her neck.

Victoria Singleton. He had it bad for her. From the first moment he’d seen her, she consumed his thoughts. There were a dozen women at the Lodge who would jump at the chance to have dinner with him and that little girl blew him off like he was nothing more than a piece of lint on her cashmere sweater.

She’d been at the lodge for two weeks. He tried to ignore her, tried to forget that he’d ever seen her, but every woman he met seemed like nothing to him. His mind painted Victoria’s face on every single one. It was like no other woman existed.

He never imagined a woman would be able to do that to him. He’d seen the same thing happen to buddies, men who’d chased every skirt in a ten-mile radius. Not just chase, but score, often. They’d been perfectly happy and even proud of their playboy ways, until the day they saw The One.

And Victoria was his. He was sure of it. It didn’t bother him that she’d stood him up, other than he wanted to be with her, now. He didn’t mind the chase if Victoria was the prize. If anything, he liked the challenge. What did bother him was the fear he saw in her eyes when she looked at him. What was that all about? How could he convince her that he was a good guy?

She was only twenty-one, twelve years younger than him. Just a baby. He should give her space, if he were a gentleman, but he was no fucking gentleman, not when it came to this girl. Nothing was going to keep him from her.

He’d watched her every night at the Lodge when the guests came to the dining room. She would arrive for dinner, in a dress and heels. The sight of her always made him break into a cold sweat. He’d watch her every move.

Her chestnut hair hung like a sheet past her shoulders, the tips brushing the small of her back. Her lips always pouted when she saw him. He imagined coiling that swath of hair, slowly and deliberately around his fist, to tilt her head back so he could kiss those pouty lips until she gave in to him, under his control and happy to be there.

She was leaving today and figured she wouldn’t see him anytime soon, but he’d planned a way to spend more time with the shy beauty. Since the tourist season was winding down here at Lake Sitka, he’d planned a little trip down to Napa. He might be there when Victoria was, and he might even stay a few days at the winery her mother just bought, and there was even a chance he might bump into Victoria.

It was a brilliant strategy. Slightly stalkerish, he knew, but brilliant. Hopefully Victoria would award him some credit for coming up with the plan, and see his resolve and audacity that he was shelling out six hundred dollars a night to stay there. He’d booked a week’s stay at the stuffy winery and the venture was going to cost him over four grand. That’s what it took to chase a girl like Victoria Singleton.

He had no business with a girl as fine as Victoria. If he was rugged denim, she was delicate silk. And if she sipped white wine or French champagne, he drank beer, a beverage they probably didn’t even serve in Napa. Or if they did it came from some micro-brewery and had a cat on the label. Or pumpkins.

No, they didn’t have much in common, but he didn’t care. She might not want to see him but he had the perfect bait. He had tickets to see Madame Butterfly at a concert hall in a nearby town the second night he was in Napa.

“Madame Butterfly,” he muttered to Charlie. “What would the guys say to that?”

Without lifting his head from his meal, Charlie wagged his tail.

“I’m on a mission to sweep her off her feet.”

It was very much like a mission. When he overheard her talking to a guest about Madame Butterfly, he’d researched the opera (which sounded pretty damn sad) and then when he discovered it would be performed in Napa Valley, he’d seen it as fate. The four-hundred dollar tickets were nothing as far as he was concerned. If she cried at the end, he’d be ready to comfort her.

He slid his breakfast from the pan onto a plate and was just ready to eat when the phone rang. He groaned to see it was his sister, Lauren. He grabbed the phone and riffled through a pile on the counter, looking for an envelope she’d sent him.

“Hey,” he said. “I got the picture if that’s why you’re calling.”

“I had the studio overnight it,” she said breathlessly. “So you wouldn’t have to wait.”

“Right.” He peeled back the tab and pulled out the eight by ten of his six-month-old nephew, setting it aside. He next pulled out a picture frame and tried to hold the phone while he slid the back off.

“Looks good. The boy’s as cute as…” his words trailed off as he tried to describe his nephew adequately. Lauren was a bullshit bloodhound and if he laid it on too thick she’d give him hell, but if his praise wasn’t glowing enough, he’d catch it two-fold. Fortunately, she started with a description of the photo session, saving him the trouble of complementing Little Joe, who, if you asked him, still looked like the last picture she’d sent.

A baby was a baby.

He shoved the photo in the frame, but the back was on wrong, preventing him from standing it up. Instead, he leaned it against the wall, propping it up with a fishing magazine so it would stay upright.

A price tag stuck to the glass. The small square hid half of Joe’s face. Clay scratched the tag with his thumbnail, loosened it and peeled it off, leaving a sticky smear on the glass. He rubbed the glue and managed to smear it more.

“…so the photographer started getting huffy with me, because Joey kept drifting off to sleep…”

“Huh. That’s bad.”

“She sure changed her tune when I mentioned Yelp. She told me she’d be happy to reschedule and would waive the sitting fee.”

Clay eyed his breakfast. The eggs would be stone cold by the time he managed to get off the phone. He loved his two sisters, but when they started talking about their children, the conversations were completely one-sided. And endless.

The phone beeped with another call from his other sister.

“Vanessa’s calling. Can I talk to you later?”

“She’s probably calling about Dad. He woke up sick to his stomach and she took him to the doctor.”

He rubbed the back of his neck and rolled his head to ease the sudden twinge. “Why would I care about that?”

Lauren and Vanessa liked to act as if their father mattered to him. He didn’t care for his step-father and tried his best not to think about the man. Ever.

“He’s been asking about you lately.”

The phone beeped again.

“Let me get this. Call you later.”

He clicked over to the other line, hoping that Paul’s name wouldn’t come up in the conversation with Vanessa.

“Thank God you’re home,” Vanessa said.

Clay closed his eyes. Not the greeting he’d hoped for. “What’s up?”

“I’m at the emergency room with Dad.”

He straightened and gripped the phone. He could picture his sister, pale and shaking. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. It’s Dad. They think he’s… oh Clay.”

He gritted his teeth. While he didn’t care for Paul, he loved his two younger sisters. Vanessa was five years younger than him, Lauren six. He remembered the day each of them was born. The way they’d looked wrapped in their little pink blankets. The curious way their hair smelled when they rested in their cradle.

Both of them were so tiny. Now, years later, the tiny bundles had grown to be strong, confident women, both hell-on-wheels. If Vanessa was getting choked up, it had to be bad. He waited, listening as her breathing evened out.

“They say he might have a blockage. And that he might have had a heart attack.”

A heart attack. Surprising to think Paul even had a heart. Clay bit back the sharp words. It wasn’t too hard to imagine that Paul’s health had declined. He drank. Not just beer, but the hard stuff. Smoked. Sat in his chair, never opening his curtains, watching ESPN in the dark.

Good fucking riddance…

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“He’s asking for you.”

“Lauren mentioned that. I just got off the phone with her.”

“I need to call her, she doesn’t know any of this. I wanted to call you first.”

“Thanks. But you know I don’t care about him.”

“That’s some over-whelming fucking concern,” she hissed.

Vanessa could turn on the venom at the drop of a hat. Normally he tried to appease her and get along. The subject of Paul always sliced a wide valley between them.

His trouble with Paul started when his mother died. Clay was fourteen. Paul coped with his grief by taking it out on Clay. His mother was barely in the ground before Paul began to berate him. And more. Paul always managed to do his worst when Vanessa and Lauren were out of earshot.

“I’m sorry, Vanessa. I’m sure this is hard. Good thing he’s in the ER. They’ll take good care of him.”

She spoke to someone else, a low mumble. David, her husband, said something about a plane leaving in an hour.

“David got you flight, Clay.”

“The hell?” He curled his hand into a fist.

“You know me. I’m more of a forgiveness than permission kind of girl.”

“I’m not giving you either. I’m leaving for a vacation in three days.” He rubbed his thumb across the glossy brochure from the Wyndemere Bed and Breakfast in Napa. Leafing through the pages, he paused on the image of an elegant, older woman with a tiny dog on her lap.

Pets Welcome!

Behind him, Charlie crunched on his kibble and Clay wondered what he’d think of the rolling, manicured lawns. After all, the vacation was going to be for Charlie, too. The dog would be the perfect wingman.

“Oh, a vacation,” his sister drawled. ”Thank God you’re getting a break from all that fly-fishing.”

His sisters never failed to give him maximum shit about his work as a guide. Their husbands were chained to a desk for sixty hours a week, working for the pipelines, and it was as if they resented that he loved his job. Times like this he wanted to remind them of the ten years he spent in the Air Force as a Para-Rescue Jumper.

“Van, I’m not coming to Anchorage to hold Paul’s hand. Not now. I’m sure he’ll sail through whatever they’re going to do. A stent most likely. It’ll buy him ten more years so he can get right back to drinking and smoking.”

“Listen you little bastard,” she spat.

Little bastard. He smirked. He’d heard the term so many times from Paul that he wondered if his step-father even knew his name. Did Vanessa realize she was parroting the same words her own father branded him with every day for years?”

“I’m a big bastard now.”

“Listen, Clay. Dad might be dying. I’m willing to send you an effing ticket so you’ll come. He’s asking for you.”

Clay remembered the last time he’d seen his father a few years back. Maybe because it had been the anniversary of his mother’s death, but Paul seemed to be in rare form. Drunk at eleven in the morning.

Paul had always run the house like his own personal military base, but as he grew older, he stopped caring about everything. The house smelled like a garbage dump. It didn’t look much better. Paul had told him to go to hell and Clay walked out without a word of argument.

“Clay,” Vanessa whispered. “There’s a ticket waiting for you at Sitka Airport. If you don’t come, even just for a day, I’ll never, ever forgive you.”

A day… He groaned. He could probably swing that if for no other reason than to support his sisters. He was off for two weeks, starting that morning. He’d arranged his plans around pursuing Victoria, but if he went to Anchorage, he could offer some support to his sisters. He’d get big brother points. Family points or whatever.

“Please, Clay. I need you. We need you. We’re still a family…”

Her voice had lost its sting. Instead she sounded forlorn. While Lauren was the master of the guilt-trip, Vanessa lacked her finesse. She had no poker face. When she sounded desolate, she truly was at the end of her rope. He shook his head, waiting for her to finish him with her sobbing, or begging, but she said nothing. There was a click and the line went dead.