Midnight Sun (Sinclair Sisters) (12 page)

The way it looked, nothing was going to do that but time.
Give it a week or two,
he told himself, remembering his old college days when spending two weeks with the same woman had set a new personal record. But those were the days before he married. Before he became a husband and father. Before Susan and Amy.

Just thinking about them sent a shaft of pain straight into his heart. He clamped down on the memories before they could flood in and renewed his vow never to get involved that way again.

With that thought in mind, he eased Charity off his chest, gently unwound himself, and quietly left the bed. Pulling on his clothes, he crossed the room, closed the bedroom door, and left the cabin.

Sex with Charity was one thing. Having a little fun was all right, too. It was time he had some fun. Past time. But any sort of relationship beyond that was out of the question.

He had to make sure she understood.

Call looked back at the cabin, ignored a longing to stay, and kept on walking down the path toward home.

Charity woke up late that morning. Every muscle in her body felt pleasantly sore and she was relaxed in a way she hadn’t been in years. Call had done that. Charity had always enjoyed sex. Jeremy had made her feel embarrassed about how much.

“You’re insatiable,” he’d said. “You make me feel inadequate and I know damned well I’m not. Maybe you ought to take some Prozac or something, calm yourself down.”

As if her sex drive was unnatural somehow. As if she wanted too much from him.

In time, his attitude had accomplished exactly what he intended. Sex became a low priority, something to fit in when Jeremy’s busy schedule allowed.

But Call wasn’t that way. Call Hawkins was all hot-blooded male, passionate in bed, a skillful, unselfish lover who took one minute and gave the next. Maybe that was the reason she responded to him as wildly as she did. One long glance and she was on fire. One touch and she burned.

It was a little unnerving.

Charity sighed and opened her eyes, rolled over onto his side of the narrow bed. Her eyes cracked open as she realized the bed was empty.

“Call?” The bedroom was empty as well, and he wasn’t in the bathroom. Drawing on her terry cloth robe, she padded into the living room, hoping to find him there.

The pellet stove burned low. She added some fuel and closed the heavy iron door, trying to ignore the icy feeling in her stomach. Call had wanted a one-night stand. She had given him exactly what he wanted.

She sank down on the sofa, ran a shaky hand through her hair, toyed with the fringed, olive-green throw cover.

You’ve got no one to blame but yourself,
a little voice said. Call had been honest from the start. He wanted a no-strings relationship. It appeared that was exactly what they’d had.

With a sigh, she wandered into the kitchen. Her appetite was gone. It was too much trouble to stoke up the stove just to make coffee so she filled the aluminum pot and set it on top of the pellet stove. It would take a little longer to perk, but it was Saturday and with Call already gone she had plenty of time to herself.

She thought of the passionate night they had shared and wondered how he could so easily walk away. It was his past, she believed, the pain that had never really left him, the kind of pain he would do anything to avoid again.

Charity straightened. Whatever his intention, Call was a different man than he had been when she had first met him. Maude had noticed it, too. Charity believed she had something to do with that change and letting him back away from any sort of involvement wasn’t the answer.

We have the whole weekend ahead of us,
Call had said. But he had left after only one night. Charity straightened her shoulders, turned, and headed for the shower. A whole weekend, he had said. Well, she meant to take him up on it. If nothing else, she’d have two days and nights of hot sex with a macho hunk like her fantasy man, Max Mason. Hey, didn’t Call even look a little like him?

And maybe with a bit of luck, it would turn out to be more than that.

Charity turned on the shower—which worked surprisingly well since the plumbers had fixed the hot water heater—adjusted the nozzle, and climbed in.

If he rejected her, she was going to be mortified. She prayed he would welcome her instead … though it might take a little persuasion. Whatever happened, she wasn’t giving up just yet. As she rinsed the soap from her hair, Charity wondered what Call would do when he saw her coming up his front-porch stairs.

There’s gold, and it’s haunting and haunting;

It’s luring me on as of old;

Yet it isn’t the gold that I’m wanting

So much as just finding the gold.

It’s the great, big, broad land ’way up yonder,

It’s the forests where silence has lease;

It’s the beauty that thrills me with wonder,

It’s the stillness that fills me with peace.

—Robert W. Service

Saturday morning slid past. It was nearing the end of June and the weather had finally begun to warm. Rainy days interspersed more and more with brilliant azure skies and bright northern sun.

Call wandered around the house, trying not to think of Charity in bed in the cabin next door. He had forced himself to leave just after dawn, though he hadn’t had nearly enough of her. He needed some space, needed to distance himself. In a couple of days, he would drop by and see her. By then she would know he’d been telling her the truth, that all he wanted was a physical relationship. If she still seemed agreeable, they would pick up where they left off this morning.

The thought made him instantly hard. Dammit, what the hell was the matter with him? He hadn’t been this randy since he was a kid. In college he’d been considered a major cocksman, but it had only taken a couple of years to learn it was quality, not quantity, that counted.

That was just about the time he met Susan—tall, dark-haired, and willowy, drenched in class. He had recognized a thoroughbred when he saw one. And Susan was a Wentworth. That meant old money, San Francisco society. She was also intelligent and caring, the perfect wife for a man with plans for an ambitious career.

Then Amy had been born two years after their marriage and he had settled down even more. God, he had loved that child, his precious little princess. And she had loved her daddy with all her innocent, three-year-old heart.

Call’s chest constricted. If only he’d been able to see where his endless ambitions would lead. The child of his heart might still be alive, along with the woman he had loved. But he had been younger then, not as clear-headed. That didn’t happen until after the accident. Not until he had moved back here. Not until it was too late.

The ache in his chest expanded. Call crossed the kitchen and reached for the door to his office, shoving the painful memories back into the dark corner of his mind where he usually kept them. Taking a seat at the chair behind his walnut desk, he flipped on his computer.

Outlook Express brought up his e-mail. There were a couple of new messages in the In-box, the first from Peter Held.

Man, you are incredible. I can’t believe you’ve already got the lab up and running. We’re close to a solution, Call. I can feel it in my bones.

Call was typing in a reply when a light rap sounded at the door. He turned to see the brass knob turning, then Charity Sinclair walked in.

She flashed a brilliant smile. “I knocked out front but you didn’t answer. I figured you were probably in here so I came on in. I guess no one locks their doors up here.”

“There’s usually no need,” he said darkly, furious she had entered his domain without an invitation. Annoyingly glad she had.

“You forgot your wallet when you left this morning.” She handed it over as he came to his feet. “Of course I could have waited for you to come back and get it, but I thought you might need it before then.”

“Thanks,” he said gruffly, feeling like a fool for thinking she had come over just to see him.

Charity glanced around the office. “So what shall we do today? It’s really nice outside. I thought maybe we could make a trip into town, take in a matinee or something. I need to pick up a few supplies. We could kill two birds with one stone.”

He just stood there staring. He’d thought leaving her this morning had delivered the message:
Sex is fine but we aren’t going to let this get personal
.

“If you don’t like that idea,” she went on, “how about taking me flying? You said you had a floatplane. I’d love an aerial view of the country.”

A muscle tightened in his jaw. “You expect me to take you flying.”

She looked at him as if he were smiling instead of frowning. Her own smile seemed a little uncertain. “It was just a suggestion. The show’s okay, too. I know there’s a cinema in Dawson but I don’t know what’s playing. I imagine up here you can’t be too picky.”

“What if I just took you back to bed?”

She cast him an interested glance. “I figured we’d get around to that sooner or later, but—”

“All right,” he said, regretting the words the moment they left his mouth. “I’ll take you flying.”

Her smile was warm and full and her eyes lit up, the clearest shade of green, the color of a lake after the snowmelt. “Great! Where are you going to take me?”

“Where do you want to go?”

Her lashes swept down, long and thick and darkened with a trace of mascara, a hint of city girl she refused to give up. He felt the pull of a smile he refused to let surface.

“Can I pick any place I want?”

“Within reason.”

She looked up at him hopefully. “I’ve been dying to go to Skagway. I suppose it might be too far, but—”

“Skagway? Why would you want to go there?”

“Alaska’s where the Gold Rush really began. I considered driving down there from Whitehorse when I first arrived in the Yukon, but I was too excited about getting to the Lily Rose.”

He turned away, not liking the curl of warmth he felt when she looked at him that way. “It’s almost a three-hour flight, but the scenery’s incredible. We’ll have to check the weather.” He sat back down in front of the computer and started pounding on the keyboard, then waited while the necessary information came up. “Weather looks good for the next couple of days.”

He turned to find her peering excitedly over his shoulder. “Pack an overnight bag,” he said a little gruffly, one half of his brain calling him a fool, the other looking forward to the trip in a way he hadn’t in a very long time. “We’ll spend the night and come back tomorrow evening.”

“You’re really going to take me?”

“I said so, didn’t I?”

“Fantastic! It won’t take me long to get ready. I’ll be back in twenty minutes.” She practically raced out the door, leaving him still sitting at his computer, trying to figure out what had just occurred.

So you’re taking her to Skagway,
his brain said.
So what? You’ll get to go flying, which you love, have dinner in a great restaurant followed by some very hot sex, then come home.
He relaxed a little. It was just a date. He’d made up his mind to start living, to get out in the world again. He had already made a start. This was just a way to continue.

Call answered the e-mail from Peter and replied to a message from Bruce Wilcox, his VP at Datatron, the Internet market research company he owned. The company was being threatened with an invasion-of-privacy suit. Call had worried something like this might happen, though legally they were well within the law. He replied to a couple of other brief messages, shut down the computer, and went to pack a bag for the trip.

As he tossed in a cashmere sweater he hadn’t worn in more than four years, he ignored the little voice that warned he was going to be sorry.

Call’s plane, Charity discovered, bobbed in the water at a small, private dock on the Klondike River. It was a single-engine model, the body and pontoons painted fire-engine red with orange stripes sweeping along the sides.

“It’s a DeHavilland Beaver,” Call explained. “They’re the best planes ever made for this kind of country.”

After making an inspection of the aircraft, he helped her climb aboard, then followed her in and they strapped themselves into their seats. Call completed his final checklist and the engine roared to life, discharging an odorous cloud of exhaust.

She heard the rush of water over the pontoons as they taxied out into the river, then the roar of the engine; the whirling propeller added a different sound. The aircraft built up speed, gliding through the current faster and faster. Then the plane broke free of the surface of the water and seemed to leap into the air.

Charity’s heart lifted with it, as if it had also taken wing. The view from the sky was breathtaking. Unlike a larger, faster airplane, the Beaver flew low enough for the passengers to enjoy the landscape spreading out below them. The earth continued to fall away and a wide swath of muddy, gray-green river where the Klondike merged into the Yukon appeared, along with vast stretches of deep green forests. Pines stretched over low, rolling hills and marched up the sides of majestic, snow-covered granite peaks in the distance.

Dawson City disappeared behind them, the vanishing grid of wooden buildings, trees, and narrow dirt streets soon just a light spot on the landscape.

“We’ll pick up those supplies you need tomorrow when we get back to town,” Call promised, sitting behind the controls with the authority of a pilot who felt completely at home in the air. “In the meantime, just relax and enjoy the ride.”

Exactly what Charity intended to do. Once they were airborne, Call filed a flight plan over the radio as a safety precaution, then headed south toward the little town of Skagway, a port on the inland strait of the Alaskan Peninsula, a hundred and ten road-miles south of Whitehorse, where they would stop to refuel.

Call flicked a glance to where she sat buckled into the seat next to his. “So tell me again why you were so determined to go to Skagway.”

She smiled at such an easy question. “Because it’s the gateway to the Klondike, the place where it all began. In the 1890s, Skagway was a boomtown. From what I’ve read, a lot of the old buildings are still there. It’s supposed to be sort of a living museum.”

“Skagway’s a very interesting place. When you’re raised up here, you cut your teeth on Gold Rush stories and a lot of them start there. Every old prospector in Dawson has at least one to tell. Mose Flanagan used to be full of them.” A corner of his mouth edged up. “So what do you know about Skagway?”

Charity thought of all she had read, of the hundred thousand gold seekers who landed there, prepared to make the grueling trip over the mountains to Dawson City, lured by dreams of Klondike gold. She knew so much she could bore him to tears, but of course she wouldn’t do that. Not everyone was as fascinated with the Gold Rush as she was.

“I know the first Stampeders arrived by steamship in July of 1897. It wasn’t a town back then, just a couple of old log cabins. Three months later, twenty thousand people lived in Skagway. The streets were lined with tents, hotels, cabins, stores, and saloons.”

“Not bad. What else?”

“In the beginning, five thousand gold seekers used the White Pass Trail to get to Whitehorse and go on to Dawson and the goldfields. But by the end of September the trail was completely impassable. It was clogged with the bodies of six thousand horses and mules.”

Call’s gaze shifted to hers. “I’ve hiked the trail. It’s rugged as hell. I can understand why very few animals made it.”

“You’ve been to Skagway, then?”

He nodded. “A couple of times. My dad took our family there when we were kids. He was as fascinated by the Gold Rush as you are.”

“Where’s your family now?”

For a moment he didn’t answer. He never liked to talk about anything personal. She thought that maybe it made him feel exposed. Or maybe the past was simply too painful.

“My dad died of a heart attack when I was in college,” he finally said. “Mom still lives in Prince George. She’s remarried. She seems content with her husband—though I’m not too fond of the guy myself. Zach—my older brother—is a lawyer in L.A.”

“A lawyer, huh? Remind me to refrain from the usual attorney jokes.”

One dark eyebrow quirked with what might have been amusement, but he didn’t ask her to tell him one.

“My mom died when I was ten,” Charity continued, hoping to prod him into sharing a little more of his life. “My dad’s remarried. Were not as close as we once were, but we’re still good friends.”

When he didn’t jump in with any more information, Charity let the subject drop. They talked about the Lily Rose and she told him that their amateur dredging operation was holding its own, though she was hardly getting rich.

“On Fridays, when we clean the sluice box, we usually find enough to pay wages and buy supplies for another week.”

“That’s the way it goes with prospecting,” Call said. “People always believe the next pan will be the one that makes them rich.”

“I didn’t come to get rich.”

His eyes found hers across the cockpit. The engine buzzed and a hint of exhaust tinged the air. “Why
did
you come, Charity?”

Now
there
was a difficult question. For a moment she said nothing, just studied the view going past outside the window. “Mostly, I came for adventure, as I said.” She explained about her father and the stories he used to read to them when they were kids.

“My sisters and I made a vow. We swore we would each have one exciting adventure before we started a family or settled permanently into a career. Patience has always been interested in the American West. She’s working on her Ph.D. at Boston University. She wants to travel the rodeo circuit next summer and write her thesis on women of the West.”

“Sounds like an interesting subject.”

She smiled. “My older sister, Hope, writes freelance articles. She figures something exciting will turn up sooner or later.”

“So coming up here was your adventure,” he said.

“Coming to the Yukon was something I had always wanted to do, but …”

“But …?”

“But in my case there was more to it than that. It may sound crazy but I had to see this place, be part of it. It’s been a driving force in my life for as long as I can remember. Even when I lived in the city, there were times I could see it so clearly it was almost as if I had been here before. The forests and the mountains—they aren’t strange to me, they’re familiar. As if I’ve always known them.”

“Because you’ve read so much about them?”

She glanced out the window, but she wasn’t seeing the sky or the endless sea of pine spreading over the empty miles below. “Sometimes it’s as though I actually remember this place. I don’t think it’s because I read about it in a book.”

Call frowned. “What are you saying? That you lived in the Yukon in some other life?”

She could hear the skepticism in his voice and she didn’t blame him. “No, nothing as far-out as that. I’m too pragmatic to believe in that sort of thing.” She studied the rows of dials in the wide black panel in front of her: altimeter, barometer, air speed, a dozen little gauges that jiggled and pointed and turned.