Reckless Fortune, page 12
She sniffed and put a hand to the plaid flannel shirt she was wearing as if it were silk. “If you’re expecting me to produce a ball gown, you’re going to be disappointed.”
“I don’t actually care what you wear,” he said, which was less true than he wished it was. Especially now that he had ball gowns on the brain. Not the gowns, per se. But Autumn with her lush body in one of them. Lord have mercy. “I know that my sister and my mother like to take the opportunity of a festival to spruce it up a bit. But you do you.”
And then he walked away before he could say or do something else he regretted.
That, after all, was how he’d ended up agreeing to take her camping. Obviously, when he was trying to maintain some kind of distance between him and his summer wife, the last thing in the world he needed to do was bring a tent into the mix. But they’d gone back to dinner at his parents’ house one night and they’d all been sitting around the fire the way they always did when Violet had mentioned she’d never been camping.
She’d glanced at Quinn, then smiled. Not on purpose, anyway. I don’t think hiding out from a blizzard counts as a recreational endeavor.
Depends, Quinn had replied, and they’d both laughed in an obviously private joke that Bowie assumed meant intimate relations he preferred not to picture.
But, naturally, that had led to a spirited discussion among all the Fortunes and Noah about where the best camping spot was and why, and then devolved into the usual stories about family camping trips in the past.
You’ve never really been camping in Alaska, Bowie had found himself belting out, because he was obviously a masochist, until you’ve gone somewhere you have to fly in. Because if you tried to walk in it would kill you.
I accept, Autumn had said from beside him. Fly me somewhere treacherous, please.
And without meaning to, because how could he back down when his whole family had been staring at him, Bowie found himself agreeing to go on an excursion into the deep, dark bush with the very woman who drove him crazy enough when he was avoiding her at home.
At this point, it’s entertaining, Noah had said later that same night. Bowie had been staring into the fire, wondering where it all went wrong, while Autumn laughed with his sister, and Violet and his brother debated mineral rights issues with his parents.
I’m glad someone’s entertained, he’d muttered.
Alternatively, his best friend had said, sounding downright chipper when most days he was nothing but grumpy, you could just set yourself on fire. That might be more . . . He’d laughed when he saw Bowie’s face. Expeditious.
Bowie had hoped that Autumn would forget the whole thing. But she hadn’t. Of course she hadn’t. She’d talked about their camping trip the whole canoe ride home, her excitement bouncing off the water and back at them from the trees. She was still talking about it the next day. And the next.
Before he knew it, Bowie was dragging out the maps and talking to her about the perils of backcountry camping, especially in hard-to-reach places. Instead of alarming her, his warnings had seemed to make her more excited.
But that was tomorrow Bowie’s problem, he told himself today after a quick shower to wash away the taint of office work. He went out to the front porch to wait for her and took a moment to remind himself that he had always loved Solstice. Here on the lake or anywhere else in Alaska, because only folks who knew the contours of a long, long winter with very little light knew how to celebrate the midnight sun at its height.
For that matter, he liked all the various parties his friends and family put on over at the Mine, because they usually became part of the lore out here. Though Midsummer at the Mine was his favorite of all the community events they put on here. It was a funny, funky little celebration that perfectly fit this place and these people. Bowie might find discussions about legal rights tedious outside of community meetings, but he loved this place. And these people. He’d lived other places but this was his only home. And this time of year, folks from down in Hopeless and sometimes even as far away as Nikolai, Takotna, or even down the Kuskokwim a ways in Stony River came to the party. Bowie liked all the same old familiar faces well enough, but it was always fun to have visitors. He was just settling in for a good trip down memory lane into midsummers past when Autumn walked around the corner of his house.
He took one look at her and was doomed.
Because maybe she hadn’t thrown a ball gown into that duffel of hers that had somehow managed to transport a whiteboard, of all things. But she’d found a dress all the same.
“I forgot I packed this,” she said happily as she strode toward him, as if she wasn’t tearing apart the fabric of his universe with every step. “And you’re right, we should always take the opportunity to dress up while we can. I can never be bothered in winter. Too cold, too many layers. But this is summer and that deserves celebration.”
“Hear, hear,” Bowie said.
Weakly.
Because Autumn’s dress was red and slinky and as far as he could tell, was actually some kind of weapon. Maybe even the secret weapon she still hadn’t disclosed. It clung. Everywhere. Bowie could only think that she apparently had no idea what that figure could do.
For a minute there, he thought he was actually seeing stars.
But no. It was only Autumn, in fire-engine red, like she was going out of her way to wreck him.
She kept talking to him as they walked down to the dock, but he couldn’t have said what it was they were talking about. He made the odd assenting noise whenever it seemed necessary, and otherwise hurried her into the motorboat, because he needed the slap of the wind in his face and the roar of the engine to set him right.
It was a relief to pull the boat up on the beach below the Mine, because the minute he and Autumn set foot on land again, they were swept up in the swirl of activity and music and merriment.
And that was better than the two of them being alone with that dress in the mix.
Because the more alone they were, the less reason Bowie could seem to come up with to continue to maintain his distance. The more alone they were, the less he seemed to recall his own history.
“This is fantastic,” Autumn breathed, her eyes shining, and then she drifted off into the crowd, where he knew she would wander around, soaking in everything. Because that was what she always did, every market day. And Midsummer at the Mine was more than a market.
He told himself it was a relief when she took off, though that wasn’t how it felt. Not as he watched her walk away from him. He found himself rubbing at his chest like it hurt.
When it didn’t. It couldn’t.
“It’s all that adrenaline-junkie-ing,” came a voice from beside him as he walked up the hill. He didn’t have to look around to identify the gravel-voiced speaker. There was only one Nyx Saskin. Short for Onyx, which no one had dared call him since approximately the fourth grade. “Giving you that heart attack after all.”
Bowie dropped his hand from his chest, irritated that Nyx had caught him at it. Though it was better than one of his siblings.
“I expected you to be busy today.” He didn’t respond to the heart attack comment. “I thought it was a Saskin family requirement to work all of Grand Mia’s festivals or risk excommunication.”
“I’ve been working, never fear,” Nyx said. “This year might actually be my masterpiece.”
Bowie laughed, but as they made it up to the crest of the hill where the Mine sat, he had to change his tune.
“I know,” Nyx said when Bowie let out an appreciative sound. “I’ve outdone myself.”
Nyx was considered the artistic one in the Saskin family, so that meant his grandmother leaned heavily on him when it came to throwing these festivals of hers. Nobody said no to Mia Saskin.
Still, it must have taken them forever. There were posts stuck deep into the earth, all of them connected with strands of brightly colored lights. And even though it was daylight, and would stay daylight until almost one in the morning tonight, the lights gave everything an extra pop of color. All of the chairs and couches from inside had been pulled out and set into groups here and there, so folks could take advantage of the outside seating.
Every door and window in the Mine was pulled wide open, and inside, the big central space had been cleared for dancing. There was already a band playing, but this was midsummer. Anyone who felt like it could jump in, whether with an instrument or just with their own voice, and take part in the festivities.
The youngest member of the Barrow family, the defiant Victoria, was holding her own toddler’s hand fiercely as she ordered children around through what looked to be the detritus of a potato-sack race. Bowie could remember all those midsummer games from his childhood. Relay races. Capture the flag. Shoving saltines in his mouth, then trying to whistle. Potato sacks, egg tosses, and three-legged races. And then, when everyone was sticky and on the verge of a sugar crash, down they’d go to the lake, where they’d swim, play Marco Polo like it was a grudge match, and basically exhaust themselves.
It seemed to him the next generation had it all well in hand.
But Nyx hadn’t stopped at rearranging things. He’d created a long, covered terrace down the length of the area in front of the Mine, where folks usually parked their vehicles. It wasn’t a tent so much as a kind of trellis. Branches and flowers wound together to stretch out over a very long table, where folks were setting up camp chairs.
“Grand Mia wanted a banquet,” Nyx said, looking the way everyone did when they’d been bulldozed into following the old tyrant’s wishes, despite their own inclinations. “She’s got the food covered. But I provided the banquet hall.”
Bowie slapped his friend on the back. “It looks terrific.”
He left Nyx and wandered inside to get himself a beer. Then he stood at the bar and drank, telling himself he was looking around, that was all. In a neighborly fashion, just seeing who was where. But the third time his eyes snagged on a flash of red that wasn’t Autumn, he accepted the truth. He wanted to see what she was doing. He already knew what everyone else was doing, or would do, given the opportunity. Even Bertha Tungwenuk’s troublesome cousins from Nikolai.
Bowie made himself walk around, greeting old friends. Especially those who had come in from far off, like his old high school buddy who lived down in Sleetmute. He sat a spell with each of them, to hear the stories that needed telling after so much time and distance. And he could remember trying to explain summers in Alaska to Karina a lifetime ago, all those daylight hours making each day into two days, at least. He’d met her on a beach north of Camp Pendleton and to a California girl, he might as well have been talking about Narnia.
You must be so sad when it gets cold again, she would say. Because she couldn’t imagine that kind of cold.
But the truth was, fall came in almost like a relief. Because everyone exhausted themselves in the summertime, trying to make the most of every moment of light. You had to make up for all the dark months. And usually, Bowie did.
I can’t imagine dark like that, Karina would say.
And he hadn’t tried to explain it to her.
He was walking back across the Mine floor, weaving his way in and out of the groups of dancers, when it occurred to him what had just happened. He stopped dead, then caught himself before he let two octogenarians careen into him. He splashed a grin over his face and lifted his beer at Mary Joseph and Mary Louise Fox, gray-haired sisters who were dancing solemnly with each other, a nice respite from their usual squabbling.
“No, young man,” Mary Louise said grandly. “There will be no cutting in tonight.”
“We’re good girls,” Mary Joseph confided.
And the two women laughed so uproariously that Bowie did, too.
“I wouldn’t dream of it, ladies,” he assured them.
It wasn’t until he walked back outside again, taking himself away from the merriment so he could get a breath, that he processed the fact that he’d thought about Karina that way. So offhandedly. As if she was a happy memory, nothing more.
He’d never believed that would be possible. It felt bittersweet.
Once upon a time, he would have considered it a betrayal. But he couldn’t quite get there today. Maybe, came a sweet voice inside him that sounded like Karina’s, though he wasn’t sure he would recognize her voice any longer, you’re moving on.
And he was still standing there, like someone had stuck a spike through his heart while he stared out at the lake, when Noah appeared beside him.
“It’s not like you to be avoiding the party,” his friend observed. “You’re usually right in the middle of it.”
“I’ll get back to it in a minute.”
He could feel his best friend’s attention on the side of his face. Noah knew part of the Karina story. He was the only one who did. But even he didn’t know everything.
Bowie had guarded the truth jealously. All these years, he’d kept it inside, because it was his. Theirs. But in all that time, he’d never thought of Karina so casually before. He felt off-balance.
He didn’t like it.
Noah made a low noise. Likely of judgment. “Keep staring out at the lake like this, all brooding-like, and folks might start to mistake you for your brother.”
Bowie grinned, because that was what he did. Then he made an anatomically impossible suggestion to his friend, and turned to head back into the party. The food was coming out now, tray after tray of Grand Mia’s specialties that on non-festival nights, she doled out only as she saw fit. Tonight she had all her greatest hits on the table. And maybe it felt like another betrayal that he was hungry.
Maybe you stopped grieving a long time ago, came that voice inside him. And all the rest of this has been stubbornness.
He dismissed that, possibly a little stubbornly. Then he looked up, and there was Autumn.
And he couldn’t think of another thing. There was only her.
That red dress. Her hair, swirling down around her shoulders. That pretty face, dominated by those eyes of hers, bright hazel, and interested in everything.
Autumn, who smiled when she saw him, then checked it with a frown.
Autumn, who turned right around and marched back into the big red Mine building, leaving him no choice at all but to follow her.
Autumn, who was alive, and more tempting than anything or anyone he’d ever seen, who whirled around as he followed her down the abandoned little hallway toward the bunkhouse section of the Mine and faced him as if she intended to fight him off with a scowl.
But he had no intention of fighting.
Because when he looked at her, he couldn’t remember his own past, his own tightly held secrets. His bullheadedness and his vows. He looked at her and saw only her.
Only joy, even when she wasn’t laughing, like joy was a gold thread and she was shot through with it.
And that was why, with the Solstice festival so loud outside that it made the wall seem to shake beside them—or maybe that was just him—Bowie walked straight to her.
“Bowie . . .” she whispered when he got there, but he didn’t want to talk.
Maybe he couldn’t.
He slid his arms around her, all those mouthwatering curves and the heat of her like a punch, and lifted her up those last, crucial inches toward him.
Joy, he thought.
And then he kissed her like his life depended on it.
Nine
He was kissing her.
Bowie Fortune was kissing her, but she had dreamed this too many times. So many times it probably should have embarrassed her.
Autumn told herself it couldn’t be real. She must have fallen on her way inside, hit her head, and was possibly lying there on the ground, even now, in a coma.
Except this had to be the hottest coma of all time.
He claimed her mouth, but he did it softly, like he was setting the scene. Kissing her once, then again, until she was the one who was pushing forward, surging up against him, fisting his concert T-shirt—the Ramones this time—in her hands.
And every time she kissed him back, he deepened it, taking them to another level.
One of his hands palmed the back of her head. The other took a lazy journey down her side. Neither one of those things should have been remarkable, and yet together they were everything.
She felt like kindling, and he was coaxing her to burn. One kiss at a time.
And she’d dreamed this, but not quite like this. Her dreams of kissing him had been a delight, but they’d been paper-thin in comparison. Because the wickedness she’d sensed in him at first sight was exactly the way he kissed her now. Every stroke of his tongue set off new fireworks inside her until she felt him in her breasts, low in her belly, and deep between her legs.
The hand at the back of her head held her face where he wanted it, and he played with her mouth, tasting her, tempting her. Taking his time, but with an intensity that made her shake. The kiss went on and on, as if he were thirsty, starving, and only she could ease the hunger.
As if only Autumn could possibly kiss him back the right way.
He kissed her as if he’d been wanting to kiss her forever, though she knew that wasn’t true. She remembered the way he’d frozen solid the moment she’d stepped out the front door in Montana. She knew what it meant.
But she didn’t care—she couldn’t care—because she was tasting him at last. The scrape of his jaw that felt as good beneath her palms as she’d always imagined it would. She found herself holding his face between her hands as the kiss got slower. Deeper.
Hotter.
So much hotter.
So hot she didn’t understand why they weren’t both incinerated on the spot. Particularly when it seemed they were teasing those flames, licking them higher, making them dance.
