“Okay, you’re done here.” Jonah suddenly appears to shut my laptop and strip me of it in one smooth movement. He sets it on the dresser, well out of my reach.
“Don’t ever try to get me to sleep out there in a tent with you, Jonah. I don’t care if you have three loaded guns under your pillow, I’m not doing it.”
He sighs heavily, his broad, shirtless back hitting the mattress as he falls into bed. “You’re not gonna get eaten by a bear.”
“I’ll bet they thought the same thing.” I point accusingly at my laptop.
“How many people did that list name? Like, twenty? Thirty? Over the last ten years? In all of North America?”
“That they know of! And that’s Wikipedia. It’s not gospel.”
He turns onto his side to face me. “Do you know how many people die in car accidents in the US every year? Try thirty thousand. At least.”
“Yeah, I’ll take death by car crash over bear mauling for a thousand, Alex.”
He rolls his eyes. “You’re being dramatic.”
“Am I? Toby’s brother went out and never came back. How does that happen?”
“Did Toby say his brother died from a bear attack?”
“He didn’t not say it. There was definitely a bear involved.”
Jonah shifts onto his back again, his gaze on the ceiling. “There’s a hundred different ways Alaska can kill you.”
“Yeah. Not comforting.”
“A lot of people go missing every year.”
“Two thousand people. I looked it up. Twice your country’s national average. Again,
not comforting.”
“Also your country, now.”
“And Toby’s brother had a gun!”
“Remind me to thank Toby for telling you this story,” Jonah mutters.
“He didn’t want to, but I would have heard about it eventually.”
“And now you’re gonna be freaked out every time you step outside, thanks to him.”
“I already was!”
He groans. “Calla, you’ve never actually seen whatever has you spooked. You haven’t even seen the fox and that thing is around all the time.”
“Exactly my point. Who knows what else could be out there? I was doing some reading this afternoon, and I want to get cameras.”
He gives me a flat look. “Cameras?”
“Yeah. Motion-sensor cameras. Tons of people use them to see what’s coming onto their property. Even in Alaska.” And now that my bank account has more zeros than I know what to do with—my jaw dropped when I checked to confirm the deposit, because even though I knew it was coming, actually seeing it was a shock—I feel no need to worry about stressing Jonah out over finances anymore.
He pinches the bridge of his nose as if pained. Or possibly annoyed. “Did you burn something in the kitchen today? Smells like something burnt down there.”
“Uh … yeah. I was trying to bake something, but I went wrong somewhere.” I smile sheepishly. What went into the oven was a promising birthday cake for Jonah. What came out of the oven was a flat, goopy mess that had dripped over the sides to burn on the oven floor.
He chuckles. “I don’t have to fly until tomorrow afternoon. I was thinking we could drive up to Talkeetna.”