Two Captains, One Chair: An Alaskan Romantic Comedy (32 page)

I latched onto Ed’s hand and pulled him to the cabin.  He was a little clumsy, stumbling over his own feet here and there.  I pushed inside, ducked into the bathroom for a towel, and tossed it to him.  Then I ran upstairs, pulled on a shirt, and yanked the blankets from my bed.  I handed those to Ed.  The spares from my linen closet, I handed to the guides, averting my gaze as they stripped Chastity’s boy-toy.

My house was still a mess, and I saw them glancing around, probably wondering if I really lived like this.  “It was the brothers,” I told Ed, waving my hand at the destruction.  He frowned, and I figured I’d tell him more later.

I jacked my Toyo stove up to ninety degrees, and then filled a kettle and put it on to boil.  Then I crossed back to Ed, where he’d folded down onto my ravaged couch.  I found an opening in the blanket he’d wrapped around himself, and made myself comfortable on his lap.  His firm thighs were a little chilly, but there was nowhere else I’d rather be.  He wrapped his arms around me, and with a sigh, rested his chin on my head.

The blond looked a little more lucid now.  He was muttering something in what I realized was a different language.  And it sounded sorta familiar.  “Is that…?”

A Swedish guide knelt next to him listening, nodded, and looked up at us with a smile.  “It’s a different dialect, but I can understand him.”  His own English was heavily accented.

“What’s he saying?” I asked.

“Cold, cold, cold,” he translated.

Grumbling, I dragged myself out from under Ed’s blanket to cross to the stove.  I brewed up some chamomile tea, and handed one mug to the Swedish guide, and the other to Ed.

The fishing guide passed the steaming mug to the blond with a few words in his language.  The blond Swede’s eyes widened, and he almost spilled the hot liquid on himself.  He broke into a wide smile—an expression that took him from #20 on my Hottest Man Alive scale straight into the top five.  He let loose with a stream of gibberish.

“He’s excited to have found someone that speaks his language,” the guide supplied.

“I take it he doesn’t speak English?”

The guide asked.  The blond shook his head.  “Said he did very poorly in school,” translated the guide.

“Can you ask him what the hell he was thinking, jumping in that river?” I asked.  Okay, maybe it wasn’t a fair question, but I was still a bit peeved that I’d almost killed a man.

The guide spoke back and forth with him for a few moments.  The Swede made some gestures, widening his eyes at me.  The guide cleared his throat.  “He says the pirate flag scared him.  And… these are my own thoughts, not a translation:  This man seems kind of… simple.”

The blond touched his arm, looking up at him with earnest eyes as he spoke again.  He seemed passionate about whatever he was saying.  The Swedish guide chuckled a little at one point, but nodded again.

“He says he wants free of the ‘heinous bitch’,” the guide said, looking at Ed and me.  “He likes it here, and would like to stay.  He’s wondering if we’ve got a job he could do.”

Ed looked at me, and raised a brow.  My own brows shot up, and then scrunched together.  I looked the Swede over again, wondering…

“You’re willing to work?” I asked.

The guide translated.  The beautiful blond we’d dredged from the river nodded.

But there was only one way to know for sure.  I stepped up to him, and I leaned in.

I squeezed his bicep.  It was good-sized, I noted, bulging, firm.  His shoulders looked pretty strong, though he was probably gym-fit, not hard-work fit—and yes, there is a difference. 

The Swedish guide thought he was simple, but moving freight wasn’t rocket science.  He’d probably do.

I nodded.  “I think I can find something for you.”

The guide translated, and the man’s smile grew even wider.  It was freaking blinding, so I glanced away.

Helly’s brothers coming in the door were much easier to look at.  I blinked, looking from them—blond, Viking-looking—to the Swede—blond, Viking-looking—as an evil idea began to form.

I ignored their ‘What’s going on?’ to turn back to the Swede.  “So this lady of yours,” I said.  “She likes blonds?”

The guide translated.  “Not my lady, not my lady,” he said, then spoke a few more words of Swedish to the man.

The Swede thought, shrugged, then nodded.

But at that point, the idea had taken such strong hold that I would have gone with it even if the brothers were black. They’d trashed my house.  Destroyed my home.

“Oh, boys!” I cooed, turning around with a wide grin.

Rory backed up a step.

“I have a job for you.  If you do this one thing for me, I’ll let you off the hook; you won’t have to clean up my cabin, or fix it, or make it up to me in any other way.  You’ll be free.  Do you like the sound of that?”

They were nodding, but cautiously, while scoping out the exits.

“Or, you know, if you’re not interested, I could totally find somebody else.”  I turned away from them, letting Ed see my grin.

Mimi chose that moment to come through her dog door.

“No, we’re interested,” Zack squeaked.  They pressed back against the kitchen counter, their terrified gazes on my goat.  Mimi scanned the people present, and stomped her hoof when she caught sight of the brothers.

They flinched.  “What do we have to do?” Rory asked.  They edged to the side, trying to put the table between themselves and their furry nemesis.

Mimi tossed her head, snorted—thought about terrorizing them, I could see it in her eyes—but then trotted over to Ed instead.  She nibbled on his blanket.  He reached out and scratched the short, bristly fur between her ears.

I turned back to the brothers.  “There’s this woman…”  I described her, being generous with her physical attributes; ‘big tits’ and ‘cock-sucking lips’ were among the highlights, though I didn’t mention the venom that tended to spill from that mouth.  “She’s staying at her cabin, alone… without a man to take care of her—”

Ed snorted.  I ignored him, trying to look innocent and sincere.

“—and she’s probably incredibly lonely… and probably feeling particularly vulnerable right now—”
since I beat her up
.  “So I was hoping… maybe you two could welcome her to the neighborhood?  Maybe hang around for a couple days, help her with any…
needs
… she might have, make sure she’s settled in?”

The brothers’ eyes were gleaming like they were little boys and I’d offered them a 55 gallon drum of candy.

“Yes,” one said.

“Hell yes!” said the other.

“We’ll do it.”

“We can comfort her.”

“We’ll take great care of her,” Rory agreed.

“Can we go right now?” Zack asked.

“You absolutely may,” I said.  “And I really admire how proactive you are, so generous and selfless in your eagerness to help this poor woman out.”

They puffed up.

“She’s got a boat out there.  If you’d take it back to her, I’m sure she’d be
extremely
appreciative.  I shot out one of the engines—don’t worry about it,” I said when they shot me looks. “You’ll be going downstream, and the engine that’s left will definitely get you there.  She’s staying in the cabin just past the bar.”

The brothers pretty much ran out of my cabin.

I sighed, feeling like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders.  As I heard that one remaining engine fire up, I grinned.

“That was pretty evil,” Ed said.

I turned back to him.  “Oh yeah?  Who do you feel sorrier for?  Your sister, or those demons in men’s clothing?”

Ed tilted his head in thought.  Scratched Mimi’s neck.  Remained silent.  Shrugged.

“That’s what I thought.”

“Ivar,” said Ed, apparently speaking to the Swedish guide.  “Ask him if he’s sure he wants to stay.”

Ivar turned and spoke some words in Swedish.

The Swede replied.

“Yes, he says,” said Ivar.  To Ed:  “I’m guessing you’d like us to put him up, then?”

Ed nodded.  “Could you find a room for him?”

“Sure thing, boss.”  He spoke to the Swede.

The Swede looked radiantly happy, and again I had to look away.  I don’t know what I’d been thinking, pretty much offering that living, breathing work of human art a job.  I’d have to wade through a sea of panties just to deliver freight, and at the very least, buy sunglasses…

“We’ll be on our way, then,” Ivar said.  “Unless there’s anything else you need?”  He directed the question to Ed.

Ed shook his head, and the guides trooped out of my cabin with my new barge boy.

I parked myself on the loveseat where the Swede had been, and stared across my coffee table at Ed. I really dug the way he occupied my cabin.  He just… fit.

And, he’d said he loved me.

The guides’ engines started, then droned away.

Ed’s face creased in a smile.  Damn, but he had pretty eyes.  The prettiest I’d ever seen.  I could totally imagine a son or daughter of mine with those eyes.  And his hair, too, I decided.  But then an unsettling vision of a little boy flashed in my mind’s eye, a three-year-old with a big, bushy beard.

Ed set down his mug, and excitement jolted through me as I saw the look in his eyes.  It was intense, focused, and made my heart beat like a drum.

But he didn’t get up.  Instead, he reached into his blanket.

He stretched that hand out toward me… and let a softball-sized hunk of gold thump onto the coffee table between us.  Then he picked his mug back up, leaned back against the ripped cushions, and sipped at his tea, watching me over the rim.

I looked at it for a moment, surprised I’d forgotten all about the damn thing.  It’d been what started all this.  I’d ignored Ed for years, would have never approached him without the missing nugget.  But I had, and since then, my life had been turned upside down.  I’d trespassed, been kidnapped, and tied Ed to a chair.  I’d fought in a cage, shot someone’s boat, and nearly killed a man.

But now, it was over.  No more brothers.  No more mysteries.  No more threat of being sued.

The nugget was mine.  And I had a feeling—a real good feeling—that Ed might be, too.

I relaxed back into my own cushions with a sigh, content to let the silence stretch out.

“Want me to fix your roof?” Ed asked.

“Oh god yes.”

Epil
ogue

I
can’t believe I let them talk me into this.

I took cover behind a big ol’ birch, heart thudding fast.  In my brain, I knew it was only paintballs—getting shot would only sting a bit, there’d be no lasting consequences—but adrenaline flooded my system as though we were actually trying to kill each other.

I peeked around the tree, and pulled back with a yelp when paint splattered the bark next to my face.  And yet, somehow missed me. 
Yay
, and at the same time,
dam
mit
.

I looked up at the sky, wondering how on earth I could have been so stupid as to sign up for this.  I’d made a pact with myself never to wind up in a gunfight aligned against Gary, and yet… here I was.

It was Gary and Helly, versus the rest of the neighborhood.  On the other side of my tree, both of them were well-hidden in the forest, picking off anyone that moved.

Not that there were that many of us left.  On this side of my tree, over toward Gary’s cabin, the ‘dead’ stood around a barbecue.  One direct hit and out, those were the rules.  And shit, there were a lot of ‘dead’.

I glanced around, starting to panic a bit. 
Was
I the last one standing?

Someone dashed out from behind a clump of alders, rolling like an action hero to take cover near me.  He lifted his head and grinned. 
Zack.

Then another guy came rolling, a little less gracefully, knocking into Zack.  Rory, I felt sure, even without seeing his face.

The thinnest thread of hope blossomed in my chest.  There were still three of us.  Maybe we had a chance…

Zack gave Rory a shove.  Rory shoved back, jostling for position behind their stump.

“Find your own cover,” Zack hissed.

“You!”

“I was here first!”

My hope died.  I tuned out their little squabble, and risked another glance out toward Helly and Gary.  Gary had a fireworks show planned for midnight, and it was just now 11 o’clock.  The camo-wearing pair were well-concealed in the deepening shadows; I didn’t see a damn thing.

Something thumped into my side.  I stumbled out from behind my tree.

A sharp sting bit into my chest.  I shrieked.  Clutching my right boob, I toppled to the ground.

“Now look what you did.”  Zack.

“If you hadn’t shoved me—!”  Friggin’ Rory.

My vision hazed red.  I rolled over, got them both in my view.  Then I lifted my gun, and squeezed the trigger.

Once.  And again.

From the Dead Zone barbecue, I heard Ed laughing.

Rory went down, a wide splatter of blue marring his back, but Zack just stood there staring down at his front in shock.  He lifted a hand, touching his blue ‘wound’.

My lip curled away from my teeth.  Remembering the hole in my roof, the harassment of my goat, and my disorganized shed, I adjusted my aim downward.  I pulled the trigger again.

With an ‘Oof!’ from Zack, and the breath hissing through the teeth of everyone at the barbecue, he crumpled to the ground.

I grunted with satisfaction, clambered to my knees, and started my walk of shame toward the food.  Embarrassing, but at the same time I was relieved.  Facing either Gary or Helly on the other end of a gun was the opposite of my idea of fun.  If Gary hadn’t asked me to help, if he hadn’t been planning on popping the question tonight…

“Who’s left out there?” I asked Ed as I stepped over the orange line that’d been spray-painted onto the grass.

“Dotty,” he said.

I glanced around, then focused back on him.  “What?”

“Dotty’s still out there.”  He handed me a beer, then slung an arm around my shoulders and pulled me in to his side facing the woods.

“Dotty?”  I didn’t see any movement out there, period.  The woods were eerily silent.

“Yeah.”

“No way.”  Dotty was a seventy-plus-year-old woman.  She’d popped four ibuprofen before setting her cane aside to pick up the paintball gun.  She’d had Rory show her how it worked.  Twice.

Ed’s lips curved.  Clearly, he knew something I didn’t. 

“Seriously?” 
Maybe we should be out there checking to see if she keeled over of a heart attack or something…

Ed squeezed me gently.  “Just watch,” he said.

What I saw was Rory dragging Zack to his feet.  He steadied him with a hand on his shoulder.  “You okay?” he asked.

Zack was still cupping his nutsack with one hand, but he nodded.  “Yeah,” he rasped.

“Good,” said Rory.  He drove his knee into Zack’s belly.

I winced, and Zack folded double.  “You bastard,” he mumbled.  Then he rocketed forward, driving his shoulder into Rory’s middle.  They both went down, punching and grunting.

The
spat spat spat
of paintball fire drew my attention back to the left.

“Where’d she go?” Helly’s panicked voice called out.

“I don’t know, she’s like smoke!  Watch your nine—
get down
!”

More
spat-spat-spats
, the shots coming closer together, becoming frenzied.  At last, I saw movement amongst the dark shadows.  I couldn’t tell who was who, but judging by the spryness of their movements, the two I saw were Helly and Gary.

“Grenade!” Gary roared.  They dove away, and an explosion of paint spattered the trees.  Then they were scrambling for cover—and I still hadn’t seen Dotty.

“You’re telling me,” I said, after I wrestled my jaw back up, “it’s just Dotty out there?” 
Sweet, little, old, grandmotherly, bakes-scones, Dotty?

Ed nodded, munching happily on a chocolate chip cookie. 
Where had he gotten a cookie?

“Just Dotty?  Causing all that havoc?”

“Yup.”  He grinned.

The brothers were still fighting.  Zack was doing his best to choke Rory out.  Rory slapped his ear.  Zack yelped.  And it was back on.

Hopefully they kill each other.

“I’m hit!” Gary cried.

I turned my attention back to my best friend and her boyfriend.  My eyes just about bugged out of my head at what I saw.

Gary was sitting against a tree, trying to wave Helly away.  She knelt next to him, firing into the darkness.  She ducked back behind their tree, and I saw that behind her mask was a face drawn with grief and anxiety.  She tried to pull Gary up.

“No,” he said.  “I’m finished.  You have to go on without me.”

She shook her head.  “I can’t.”

“Sure you can.”  He reached up and cupped her cheek as a tear rolled down inside her mask.  He coughed, clutching his ‘wound’, then finally caught his breath.  “Go out there… and shoot that unnatural old woman for me.”

Helly squeezed his hand.  “But…”

My god, they acted like he was dying.  I found myself holding my breath, leaning forward to try and hear their quiet voices.

“I love you,” Gary said, looking up at her with the softest emerald eyes I’d ever seen.

Now’s the time,
I thought.
  Ask her.  Ask her!!!
  My hand slid into my pocket, and I prepared to step forward.  I was still wearing most of my paintball gear; I was willing to step into the line of fire to make this moment perfect for them.

Helly swallowed down a sob.  “I love you too,” she whispered.  Then she turned, and blended into the darkness.

Gary rolled nimbly to his feet and loped over to us.  It was the same lope from the bar, that graceful motion that could change into a violent burst of speed and power at a moment’s notice.  It
was
rather wolf-like, I decided, remembering Helly’s shifter story.  Enhancing the effect, he pushed his mask up to reveal a toothy grin.

I ignored the implied danger.  “That was your chance!” I hissed at him as he came in range.

He shook his head.  “It wasn’t quite right yet.”

Suddenly from the woods, we heard a scream.  Helly came running out, her eyes wild.  “I give, I give!  It’s not worth it!” she yelled.

“Awww.”  Dotty detached from a tree at the edge of the woods.

I blinked, not believing my eyes.  There had been nothing there until she moved.  She had, by all appearances, just appeared.

“You would deny an old woman the pleasure of victory?” she called, limping toward the barbecue.

Helly hesitated just a couple feet from the line.  She sighed, her shoulders slumped, and then she turned around.  “Make it quick.”

There wasn’t even a second between her words and Dotty’s paintballs. 
Spat-spat!

Helly clutched her chest.  Her knees bent, and she dropped.

Dotty stood over her in triumph.

I’m not sure if it was for our benefit, or Dotty’s, but Helly gave us a death every bit as dramatic as Gary’s.  Even the brothers quit their scuffling to watch.

She wheezed.  She swayed.  Coughed.  And finally,
finally
fell to the side and rolled to her back, arms akimbo.  Many agonized, writhing seconds later, she went limp.

Everyone cheered as Dotty, with a huge grin, thrust her gun into the sky.

Zack approached her.  “Nice shot,” he said, “for an old woman.”

Dotty pinched his butt.

Zack squeaked, and sort of levitated for a moment.  Looking confused, and rubbing his rear, he slunk away.

Gary peeled Helly up off the grass with some consolatory words.  A few minutes later, I saw them disappear into the house, and there was no doubt in my mind what they were up to.

As it got closer to midnight, the brothers got drunk, and loud.  Gary’d been lucky so far, but they were probably just minutes away from breaking something.

After just two days in their tender care, Chastity had been ready to tell us everything.  When Ed and I dropped by, her yard had been scorched, the grass black all around a freshly-built catapult.  This one was just raw logs lashed together with rope, not nearly as fancy as the one the brothers had left me—which I was currently using as a lawn ornament, though it would easily double as a home defense system if they ever tried to visit. 

Chastity had run to meet us at the shore.  She’d been disheveled, her hair frizzed, one eyebrow drawn on her forehead a good half inch above target.  She’d jumped into our boat, crying, “Please, you have to take me with you!”

She was a bitch, though, so of course we refused.  Her shoulders had slumped… but then Ed had spoken up.

“We can’t take you, but maybe, if you tell us what happened, how you got the gold nugget, we can take the brothers,” he had suggested.  It was one of the puzzle pieces that’d never really fit for me; she hadn’t even been around when my gold nugget was stolen.

Well, as it turns out, Jimmie was the one who actually took it.  That’s right, my former barge boy was the thief.  He’d broken his arm at fight club—
the miserable, lying bastard—
and realized he’d be unable to work the rest of the summer.  This was a problem, because he had quite a marijuana habit, and suddenly no income to support it.

Chastity had known Jimmie from her visits up here, looked him up on social media, and (in an act of impeccable timing) offered him $2,000 to steal the gold nugget.  She said it hadn’t been the original plan—at first, she’d just been coming up to check out the cabin Ralph had left her, and get it ready to sell—but then she’d thought of it, and Jimmie’d said yes.  And Chastity couldn’t pass up the chance to watch me squirm.

The day before I realized it was gone, Jimmie had sat in his boat and watched till I left my cabin, then walked in and nabbed the nugget.  He’d boated to town, made the exchange with Chastity, and then had bought his pot and splurged on a new console and video games.  He’d been holed up in Anchorage with his friends, his feet up, enjoying the fruits of his theft…

When Helly and Gary found him.  I’d sicced the pair on him, because they seemed to enjoy such work.  They’d wanted to break his other arm, but I told them, ‘just rough him up a bit’.  In the process, they told him that if he ever stole from me again, he’d have the Guidefather to answer to.  They said his eyes had gone wide as half-dollars… and then he’d pissed himself.  So I guess there was some truth in what Ed’d told me.

Though I still didn’t see it.

Ed sat at a picnic table, even more handsome and touchable-looking than he’d been an hour ago.  His dark, disheveled hair was ripe for my hands, his beard practically begged for a rub of my cheek, and that flannel shirt would delight my fingers—and had already, when I helped him out of it earlier today.

I still couldn’t quite believe it, that he was a dangerous guy.  He was firm with muscle, and apparently in charge of a gang of ruthless fishing guides, but he was also… sweet.

Though, he hadn’t been sweet to the brothers.  After we picked them up from Chastity’s, Ed had pulled immediately in to the bar.  He’d thanked them for their work with his sister… and then had taken them downstairs, and shown them just exactly what he thought of their making my life hell in the past several days.  He even let me watch.