Some Kind of Wonderful (Puffin Island 2)

When he didn’t answer she turned her head and found him looking at her with that dark, intense gaze that always made her stomach drop. It was as if he looked deep inside a person, never trusting what lay on the surface. For a man who guarded his own innermost thoughts as fiercely as a vault in a bank, he was remarkably adept at reading others.

“Winter,” he said roughly. “I guess mine is winter.”

“Which is presumably why you chose to live in Alaska?”

“Alaska is one of the least densely populated places on the planet, which made it custom designed for me.”

“Because there’s more wildlife than people and you don’t love people?”

“I judge them on a case-by-case basis, but it’s true that on the whole I find wildlife easier to understand.”

“So you picked lonely places so that it was just you and the polar bears?”

“Not many polar bears, and they’re mostly

up by the Wrangel Islands and the North Slope. You’re more likely to meet a grizzly or a black bear.”

“As you can probably tell, I don’t know much about Alaska.”

“Plenty of folks don’t, even though it’s the largest state.”

She stretched out her legs. “What did you do out there? Who did you fly and where did you fly them?”

“A mix of people. Locals, businesspeople, oil folk and the school hockey team. And I took them wherever they wanted to go. The bush planes are a lifeline for many of those rural communities.”

“Sounds dangerous.”

“Not really, but when it was dangerous the danger always came from predictable sources—the wildlife and the weather. Life there has an appealing simplicity. If something is trying to eat you, you don’t let it. If the weather doesn’t want you to fly, you don’t fly.”

“But knowing you, you flew anyway.”

He gave a soft laugh. “Occasionally.”

“Do you miss it?”

“Sometimes. But even in the summer Puffin Island offers plenty of places to escape the crowds.”

“Philip is pleased you’re back. You’re like a son to him.” The moment the words left her mouth she sensed the change in him and cursed herself for carelessly wandering into the realms of personal. Swiftly, she changed the subject. “I sometimes miss Greece.”

“Have you decided what you’re going to do once that plaster cast is off your wrist?”

“No. I thought of applying for a tenure-track faculty position here in the US, or possibly returning to the UK. I don’t know.” And that was unusual for her. She always knew. She was used to having a clear goal and concentrating her efforts on going after it. “I’m not ready to leave the island yet. I think I might be having a midlife crisis.”

“In your twenties?” There was a hint of amusement in his voice and she pulled up her legs and wrapped her arms around her knees. The cast felt awkward and unyielding and she gave up and shifted her position until she was comfortable.

“You’re laughing at me, but I’ve always known exactly what I wanted to do. Every job I did, every path I took, was all part of my plan. I wanted to get my degree, then my PhD, I wanted to walk the Inca Trail and spend time in Greece because the whole place is like a museum, or maybe a Minoan theme park.” She grinned, thinking how her professors would wince at the description. “Either way, I always knew what the next goal was. Until now. For the first time in my life I don’t know what I want to do. I assumed coming back here would be a short, temporary thing. A brief visit while I recuperated and before I went off to do the next thing on my list.”

“And?”

“And I don’t have anything on my list that feels better than being here. And that’s scary. It’s the first time in my life I haven’t known what I wanted. What I need.”

Except when it came to him.

She knew she needed him.

There was a soft splash as a bird skimmed the water and Zach stirred.

“Maybe what you need is time to heal. That’s why you came home, isn’t it?”