Chapter 3
Ethan
“So what is there to do around here?”
Molly waved her hands around. “You see it. There are plenty of wildernesses to hunt and fish in, hiking. I don’t really know what the men do around here except drink coffee and complain, but there is a lot to do if you like the outdoors.”
I told her that I liked to hunt and she went through a few places that were available, including one sight that I hadn’t expected.
“Hey Denise. You still have that track behind your house, don’t you?”
She told her that she did and Molly offered that up as well. That got my attention because I wanted to see more of the quiet little redhead that was serving me coffee all morning. She was not at all like the blonde I was talking to now and that was a good thing. The redhead was quiet right now, but her eyes and walked I walked into when I first got here told me that the truth was otherwise.
Denise hadn’t said much, but I had her attention and her soulful green eyes told me that she was interested in me. I believed that more than I believed anything else. I smiled at her several times and she had this almost innocent reaction to my attention that made me curious. They didn’t have women like her where I was from and I was even happier to be in Nome. Maybe something good was going to come out of it, more than I had thought anyways. This trip was going to be more than a little money in my pocket.
“You don’t mind?”
Denise nodded her head that she didn’t. “Not at all. Its good hunting ground, but I don’t personally like to hunt it too much. I just talk other people in to killing for me if I need something. I haven’t hunted out there in a long while.”
“Well I wouldn’t mind going out one evening soon if you are going to be home and wouldn’t mind. I don’t want to find myself on the wrong track and someone get territorial. They do a lot where I come from.”
“I don’t have to be there if you want to go. I will give you the address and you can come by if you feel up to it whenever. I’m here a lot, so you don’t have to wait for me to be home, or you would be hunting by flashlight.”
Molly waved her off and told her that she had some time coming up to be off. All she had to do was tell her when. Denise didn’t like the add-on by her friend, but she smiled nonetheless and didn’t answer back.
Denise was put on the spot and she relented because she was not given another choice. Molly pushed for a time; even though I would have left it open.
“Tomorrow?”
Denise agreed, but once again I wasn’t sure if that was something she wanted to do or felt compelled to do to be polite. It didn’t matter to me all that much why, as long as I got to see her again in a different context than here. There were too many people in everyone’s business to try anything here with. I would have better luck at her place and less people watching our every move. Denise hadn’t been with anyone in the town and that had made her a legend in some eyes and I even got a few dirty looks for even talking to her.
I got up from the counter and thanked her again for the coffee. I’d had enough and I had a couple of men that I had to meet about the job that was already starting to get going full steam. It was my vision, but I had to make sure that everyone else could see it as well. It was going to be an attraction, as well as a functional harbor, so I had to make sure everything was just right. This was my first big project like this so close to home and I wanted to make sure that everything went right. There was more pressure because it was my home state and I knew how the locals loved change around here.
The air was much colder than the inside and it took my body a minute to acclimate to the change. It was a little warmer here in Nome then where I was from, but there was dampness in the air that I wasn’t used to. It somehow seemed to make it colder than home.
My mind went to Denise and I could see that I was going to be spending more time there. There were a couple other restaurants in the small, seaside town, but it was Molly’s that had the staff to take care of all of my needs.
Pushing those thoughts from my brain, I couldn’t help but find it straying there time and time again while I took the short walk to the harbor. It wasn’t that far from the restaurant and it gave me some time to appreciate the views. I loved Alaska and travelling to all parts of it had always been a fun pastime for me. I wanted to see what was out there and the more I tried to see it all, the more I realized that there was just so much more to see and I wanted someone to share it with. Travelling alone became old after a while. I wanted someone to see the sights with me.
“Hey Charlie, how’s it going?”
Charlie was a man I’d met earlier in the day when I’d first gotten here and I didn’t know him well, but he seemed the type that would be a good choice to drink a beer and shoot the shit with.
“Hey Ethan. Is it time for the meeting?”
“About time. I don’t even have a watch, so I don’t have fast and hard times. Everyone will get here soon. It looks like almost everyone is here, so we will get started soon.”
“Where you coming from?”
“Molly’s.”
“Good food. How was it? Is the special roast today?”
I didn’t have the answer. “Just got some coffee and took in the view. Didn’t get anything to eat this morning.”
“The view? Hell there is barely one window in that little shack. What view are you talking about?”
“Denise.”
Charlie chuckled and he agreed. “She sure is pretty to look at, isn’t she?”
“What’s that mean?”
“It means that no one has had very good luck with her. She is pretty picky from what I hear and doesn’t put out for anyone. I mean no one.”
He leaned in to say it and I didn’t believe him. I sort of thought that he was thinking of someone else, but I knew that he wasn’t. Was she really that way? She hadn’t given me that feeling at all. If anything else, she had seemed shy, but that was easily remedied. I figured then that she just hadn’t met the right man yet.
I was going to be that man.
“No one like me has tried Charlie. Wait and see. I will have her in my room before I leave here.”
“Do you want to make a wager on that?”
I didn’t like where it was going, but I was the one that had boasted. If I was going to be in for a penny, I might as well be in for a pound.
“Sure.”
Charlie practically giggled like a girl and that told me that maybe I was in over my head. I hadn’t ever had trouble before, so why would it be any different now? She was just a girl, like everyone else and no one yet had been able to resist my charm.
“So we need to have a deadline. You’re so sure that you can change her mind when no one else could, so how long do you need Ethan to do the impossible?”
The way he worded it made my anxiety level go up. Impossible huh? Nothing was impossible.
“A month.”
He whistled. “That’s a while, but even then I don’t think you will do it. A hundred bucks say that you won’t.”
We agreed with a handshake and I moved back to see more people flooding in. It was time to get started, now that I had agreed to such childish terms. I needed the help of the locals and Charlie was a pillar of the community. That’s how I rationalized it all anyways. It was all going to be fine. I didn’t care to lose that small of an amount of money and I knew that I was going to go after her whether or not the money was on the line.
I had decided before this that I was going to have Denise. She was ripe for the picking and the bet was just some fun between me and one of my new workers. It wasn’t like Denise was ever going to find out about it.