Reckless Fortune, page 16
She hadn’t wanted it to end.
She still didn’t want this to end. She might not have buckets of experience, or really any of note, but she didn’t need much to understand when someone wanted to cut things short. She had been dizzy with desire and longing and wonder. He had been thinking about ways to let her down easy.
Autumn recognized that expression on his face. She’d seen it before.
And the truth was, she’d learned things about herself today. All of last night and all of this morning. She had always prided herself on facing facts. On marching, head unbowed, into any fray that presented itself. But today she’d wanted just a little more time.
Just a little more, before he took himself away again, out of reach.
Something inside her shifted, uncomfortably. She wasn’t good at losing people. She figured that was par for the course after losing her mother at a tender age. But then she’d lost her sisters, too. One by one. And it didn’t matter that she’d been so delighted to see them go. That she’d celebrated their reasons and their dreams, and the fact that they’d been so determined to get out of Montana. It had been hard to lose them like that anyway, one after the next.
And she loved Donna. If she’d been asked to choose the perfect stepmother, she would have picked Donna every time. They’d all known her for years. She’d been a teacher in high school when Sunny had been a senior. No one in town had a bad word to say about her. She was kind and happy and smart. And somehow, she had still taken a look at grumpy Hunter McCall, and thought, Yes. I can work with that.
First she’d worn him down enough to take her on a date. That had taken a year. Then she’d let him take his time working his way up to thinking about marriage again. That had taken two years.
Autumn often wondered if this was how parents felt as they gave their children away to spouses, or graduations, or cross-country moves. Because she was happy for them. She was. But there was a part of her that mourned losing her place in her father’s life, too.
Though now that she stood here in the doorway to Bowie’s office, it all felt to her like a lot of whining. The kind of self-pity she certainly did not enjoy in others. She tried to tell herself that there was no connection between all of those things and the way she felt about Bowie Fortune. Even after she’d seen, with her own two eyes, that he wanted to be done with her, too.
She decided there and then, in his office doorway, that she would wrap that feeling up inside her until it was compact. She would put it away. Because she’d seen Bowie’s look of disappointment the day he’d come to pick her up. He’d run the sister gauntlet and he’d ended up with the dud. That wasn’t hurtful, that was just the truth. Besides, he was so absurdly beautiful—with that jaw that made her feel swoony—that she was sure he had sex like that all the time.
And that was okay. It was really, truly okay. She told herself that it was, a few times, until it took.
Because she didn’t need him to treat her like she was one of her sisters. To fall head over heels in love with her. To send arrangements of absurd cut flowers to the house, to buy her expensive items she would never use, to write her bad poetry. She didn’t need all those bells and whistles and gift baskets. She wasn’t a beauty queen. She’d tried on one of Jade’s tiaras once and had laughed herself half-sick.
Autumn knew exactly who she was.
She just needed a little more, that was all. Just a little more, because she knew a man like Bowie Fortune came along only once. He was harder to hold on to than a northern summer and there was no guarantee of good weather.
Still, she wasn’t ready for fall. Not just yet.
He hung up the phone, then turned to look at her as if he’d known she was there the whole time. And Autumn didn’t think she was imagining the way his gaze lightened. The way that heat returned.
And echoed in her, too. Brighter, maybe.
Just a little bit more, she told herself. That’s all. Then I’ll be content to be let down however he likes.
Bowie eyed her as if he could read all that on her face, but she was pretty sure he couldn’t. Because if he could, no way would he have smiled the way he did then. As if he was happy to see her. As if this was real.
As if everything she felt, he felt, too.
You need to stop that kind of thinking, she lectured herself. It will lead nowhere good.
“Ready to go camping?” he asked, and the way he said it, it sounded dirty. In all the best ways.
Many of which she knew now.
She didn’t think it was unreasonable that she wanted to know more.
Autumn smiled back at him with perfect, serene confidence, as if she spent nights like that all the time. And more, woke up in the morning with assorted men right there, then carried on as if everything was normal.
And then she smiled like she was the one who might be doing the letting down easy, come the day. Maybe she would.
“Oh, I’m ready,” she said, and raised her brows at him. A direct challenge. “Are you?”
Twelve
When Bowie got the plane in the air—leaving his house, the beguiling lake, and remnants of Midsummer at the Mine, the scene of his crime, behind—he began to feel more like himself again. He could breathe better.
He always found his equilibrium in the air. That had certainly been true when he’d been a teenager, filled with too much testosterone and the deep desire to not be his overly responsible brother, forever the enemy of fun.
Flying had taught him the difference between the kind of fun he’d been attempting to have around Lost Lake and Hopeless—and real fun. The so-called fun he’d been into had been the usual teenage stuff, reckless and stupid and always with the potential to go horribly wrong. It was a miracle anyone lived long enough to grow up, as far as Bowie could see.
Flying had introduced him to the man he could be, someday, if he settled down in all the right ways. If he got serious about something. If he stopped worrying about being the anti-Quinn and started thinking about being himself instead.
Up in the sky, he didn’t have to worry about such things.
Up here, he was always himself.
The skies had saved him after what had happened with Karina. Every spare moment of leave he could muster up, he’d spent flying. It had been a no-brainer to see if he could make a living at it once his time in the service was done.
Usually, the minute he took off, he was good.
This time, he couldn’t say he was fully himself no matter how much he wished he was, because Autumn was right beside him.
Looking cool as a cucumber instead of rattled, the way she’d been the first time he’d flown her, which only made him feel . . . grumpier.
But grumpy was not his style. So he had no choice but to force himself to act like everything was normal. Because that was how she was acting. At him, to his mind.
He should have been acting that way, too.
Because Bowie didn’t get torn up about women. He didn’t let things get complicated. He didn’t do this.
“You look entirely too dour,” she observed from beside him, her voice bright and clear through the headsets they both wore. Headsets that he had never regretted were noise-canceling until now, when it felt like she was in his head. “Yet the sky is clear and blue. Is there something you’re not telling me? A lurking snowstorm? Winter just over that ridge?”
Bowie ordered himself to get a grip. Maybe this time, the ten thousandth time since he hadn’t ended this upon waking, it would take.
“This is Alaska, Autumn. Winter is always over the next ridge. If you don’t prepare for it, you can be sure it will get its teeth in you but good.”
She sighed. Pointedly. “Because, of course, I have lived my entire life on a tropical island and know nothing of this winter you mention. I’ve certainly never lived through one. In a state known for its long, brutal winters. You do know that Alaska isn’t the only state in the union with weather, right?”
“You’re the one who wants to go to a tropical island,” he reminded her. “Personally, I like a little snow.”
Autumn shifted in her seat at that, prompting him to cut a look her way. But she looked the way she always did. Pretty enough to make him feel downright foolish. And, today, obnoxiously serene. “Yes. Well. I’m told the mai tais are worth the trip.”
He cleared his throat, but still sounded rough when he replied. “I would miss the mountains.”
Another sigh he couldn’t pretend he didn’t hear, because it was right in his headset. “You do know that a great many tropical islands have mountains, right? On account of how they’re volcanic and all?”
Bowie shot her a grin, and he wasn’t even forcing it, which really should have concerned him more than it did. Especially given how he’d spent the last night. And the law he had yet to lay down about the upcoming night and all nights thereafter. Now was a perfect time to get in there and get it done.
Instead he asked, “But are they these mountains?”
He figured the Alaska Range scenery made the point for him but she didn’t respond. When he glanced over again he saw her gazing out at the foothills as they flew, with the higher peaks towering imposingly before them. He’d been more than half in love with these mountains all his life, even though he was sticking to lower elevations today.
And that was all the love he allowed himself these days.
That was what he needed to remember.
An hour or so into the flight, he began the descent toward his favorite little slice of isolated heaven, winding his way down into a tricky section of hill and rock. Careful to watch his instruments as well as the view in front of him, because mountains were tricky. And these were trickier than most. Even down low compared to the stars of the range, like Denali up at its lofty twenty thousand or so feet.
And Bowie had been grumpy all morning, feeling a little bit swollen with self-recrimination and regret. Or not really regret, because he sure didn’t regret a single moment of last night, but he couldn’t say he thought too highly of himself for it, either. He’d known better before he’d kissed her. He’d sure as hell known better after kissing her, but he’d gone ahead and stood out there in the moonlight with her anyway, hadn’t he? He’d been nursing his guilt all day like a sore muscle, but as he made his way down into his hideaway, he forgot all about it. Because he heard Autumn’s indrawn breath. Crystal clear, right there in his ear.
Like she was still wrapped around him in his bed.
An image he did not need to dwell on while attempting to land a plane in a mountain lake, thank you.
He could have taken her camping back home. There were any number of sweet camping spots he knew there, especially in summer. But instead he’d decided to fly them out to his favorite spot. Not because it was his favorite, he’d assured himself. She’d wanted inaccessible and remote, and he’d delivered on that. It was the least he could do.
Also, it was the prettiest place he knew.
Deep inside, Bowie knew he was headed toward a reckoning. He kept thinking right but acting completely differently. There was no way that was going to end well.
He knew that. Better than most.
And yet, right now, he couldn’t bring himself to care.
Because before them, a picture-perfect alpine lake glistened in the summer sun. Up above the tree line, white peaks surrounded it, still and always covered in snow.
And he set them down right in the middle of all that pristine goodness.
“Wow,” Autumn breathed, her eyes wide and no sign of that irritating serenity any longer. This was the Autumn he liked best—all wide-eyed wonder and contagious joy, and he really needed to stop thinking about her that way. “This is . . . wow.”
“I understand,” Bowie managed to say, feeling a little too pleased. As if he, personally, was responsible for this little slice of Alaskan perfection. “That’s pretty much the only appropriate response.”
He brought the plane in toward shore, then secured the floats in the usual makeshift fashion he used while out adventuring. Autumn climbed out and started taking the gear onto the beach. When he was reasonably sure wind and any resultant waves couldn’t damage anything, he jumped onto the rocky shore and headed toward Autumn.
A little too aware that for all intents and purposes, they might as well be all alone on the earth.
It was a different kind of quiet here. No generators. No motors out on the lake or power tools in the shop. No radio, no music. A primeval stillness here, he liked to think, because the wilderness was never actually quiet. It had wind and water. Wildlife. The crunch of his feet against the shore. The sound of his own breath.
The sound of Autumn, existing there at the water’s edge, taking up too much space. Crowding out the riot of his own blood in his veins.
He walked toward her, each step too loud. And as certain as he was that this was all leading him straight to his own doom, he didn’t stop. He didn’t even slow down.
“Do you come here a lot?” she asked when he came to a stop beside her. She was looking all around, her whole face lit up, so that Bowie didn’t have to ask if she felt that same sense of exhilaration that he did here. He could see she did. It made something in him tighten, then hum a little.
Worse, it made him imagine things he shouldn’t. What-ifs that belonged to other men, maybe, but not him. Never him.
“I come here whenever I can,” he told her, and his voice seemed too loud and insubstantial at once out here. “I found it a long time ago when I was scouting around, getting my flight hours in. I’ve never seen any sign that other folks come here, too. You’re the only person I’ve ever brought here.”
That was true. But he wasn’t sure why he felt the need to say it. Especially not when she turned those pretty eyes of hers on him. And looked at him, for far too long. As if she knew all the things about him she shouldn’t. His secrets. His longings.
What he wanted, badly, that he wasn’t going to let himself have.
You seriously have to get it together, he growled at himself.
“You asked for remote,” he said, and maybe he sounded a little more surly than necessary. But it was that or really, truly deal with how thrown he felt around her, and that was unacceptable. “Never let it be said that Bowie Fortune doesn’t deliver.”
“Good news. I would never have said that.”
“See that you don’t, killer,” he said, grinning despite everything, and somehow that managed to put them back on reasonable footing.
Because you’re suddenly deeply concerned with being reasonable? he asked himself as they started to set up their camp. He would have laughed at himself, if he wasn’t too busy putting up his tent. Then pulling out the one he’d brought for her. And then . . . stopping.
There was no reason he should have been stopping.
“Are we setting up the tent for you?” He didn’t look at Autumn as he asked it. He didn’t need to look at her. He knew exactly where she was. Up on the beach and back from the water with him, where they were protected from the wind, but not fully swallowed up by the trees.
Exactly five feet away from him, squatting down over one of the bags he’d packed full of supplies. Looking at the mosquito head nets he’d packed like she couldn’t decide whether or not to put it on yet.
She laughed, that rich, earthy sound that he’d heard too much over the past twenty-four hours, a lot like she was tattooing it inside him. Permanently.
Bowie took exception to that. He’d made it through his entire military career without a tattoo, mostly because he was ornery. He liked his scars as they were. He didn’t need to pretty them up, thank you very much.
He wished he understood what it was about Autumn McCall that made him want to change that. That made him think she would be the one tattoo worth having.
“I don’t know that I need to put up a tent,” she said then. He looked over at her and there was a little too much uncomfortable wisdom in that gaze of hers. “Do I?”
He was already looking at her. And then that was all he felt like doing for a while, even though everything inside him felt catastrophic.
Except not necessarily a bad catastrophe, and that was what he couldn’t seem to take on board.
“Here’s the thing, Autumn,” he began, because he was going to do this. Right now.
But to his surprise, she groaned. “Bowie. I swear to God, if you take this opportunity for one of your let-her-down-easy speeches, I may not be responsible for my actions.”
He pushed on. “I just want to make sure—”
“I do not recall sending out wedding invitations,” she said, and the craziest part was that she sounded . . . perfectly calm. Amused, if anything. “I’m not going to pretend that I have a whole lot of experience in these matters, but I think you’re freaking out.”
Only if she’d tossed him into the frigid lake could she have shocked him more.
“Freaking out? Marines don’t freak out. Pilots never freak out. You must be thinking of someone else.”
She stood slowly, fixing him with that look she got sometimes, like she was seeing straight into his soul. “That could be. There’s quite a crowd around here. It’s easy to get faces confused.”
“I’m glad you see that, Autumn. It’s important to accept our own limitations.”
“I owe you an apology.” Her whole face lit up again in that way he liked most, bright and sharp. Letting him know exactly how ridiculous he was, which, for some reason, made him feel a lot less like he was playing some role. “I’ve obviously let myself become overwrought.”
“That happens a lot,” he said kindly. “It’s one of the effects of my charm.”
