“I’m sorry, dude, but I can’t do that. This is what she wants. You know how it is when a woman has her mind set. If this were Astrid, could you tell her no?”
Phoenix closed his eyes and scrubbed his hand over his cold-chapped face. “I don’t even know why I’m still discussing it. I just wish she could have waited, at least until Sunny gets back, but my baby sister is the stubborn one in the family.”
He understood well how deep Misty could dig in her heels.
Checking over his shoulder quickly, her brother tucked his hand into his jacket and pulled out an envelope. “Here’s some cash for the road.”
“No, really, I can handle this.” He wasn’t wealthy, but he made a decent living. Or at least it seemed so here. “There’s plenty of snow in need of plowing, and my brother and I are the only game in town.”
“Take it. This is no time to let your pride get in the way. This is about Misty.” He thrust the envelope into Flynn’s hands. “Take care of my sister.”
Flynn closed his fingers over the money. Holy crap, the stack was thick. Even if it was all small bills, there had to be a lot of cash here. And it did bite his pride harder than the slice of winter’s worst storm.
But Phoenix was right. This wasn’t about them. It was about Misty.
“I won’t let her out of my sight,” Flynn vowed to her brother and to himself. Regardless of whether or not she let him back in her life, he would make sure she had the future she wanted.
“Good, good…” Phoenix nodded, staring at his sister with obvious emotion in his eyes.
And with reason. In all probability he would never see her again. Hell, there was a strong chance Flynn wouldn’t be able to return either, if he had to follow her too far out into the world. To date, no one had come back once they left. That was made clear by the village council. They asserted if they allowed free flow in and out, before long, uncommitted people would corrupt their way of life.
Flynn skimmed his finger inside the collar of his sweater again, struggling for breath, and praying he would be able to hold strong on his promise to see Misty safely down the mountain.
Failing her again wasn’t an option.
***
Snowflakes swirled in front of his windshield.
Wade gripped the steering wheel of his Chevy truck, cranked into four-wheel drive for the ice-caked road leading to the tiny port town. He’d spent the whole drive over trying to persuade Sunny to abandon this crazy-ass decision to go home immediately, but she dug her heels in deeper and deeper, refusing to discuss running off with him for a week of nonstop sex.
And her request that he go with her? She couldn’t be serious.
They’d been driving for hours from Anchorage to the small airport on the Alaska Peninsula where Sunny intended to catch a flight across Bristol Bay to the island. Alaska was all about the flying. Small planes made the state accessible year-round in a way that would otherwise be a helluva lot tougher over snowcapped terrain. At any other time he would have welcomed the notion of tackling the Alaskan outdoors with a woman who enjoyed the landscape as much as he did.
But not today, and they were almost to the airport. Almost out of time to persuade her to stay well away from home while the OSI and the police did their job.
Well, except for her injured dog.
When she’d visited Chewie and heard he had to stay on crate rest, she’d panicked. She’d quickly realized her dog couldn’t make the trip up the mountain. Even with most of the trek done by plane and snowmobile, there was still a substantial pass to be tackled on foot.
She’d actually discussed a sled option with the vet, but thank goodness the doctor had stressed the importance of keeping Chewie calm and still. Bottom line, the best thing for the dog was to stay in Anchorage, on crate rest. Since Chewie had seemed comfortable with the vet, she’d forged ahead.
Hell. He thumped the steering wheel, then ignored Sunny’s frown.
Even if he could persuade her to stay for a couple of weeks, it wasn’t as if they could launch some kind of relationship, with his deployment to Afghanistan looming. Even once he returned to the U.S., he faced a transfer to a new base.
He spun the steering wheel, cranking the truck into the parking lot outside the small brick building alongside a single landing strip. There was so much about this woman’s life he didn’t understand, yet he knew every inch of her body. Intimately. And he wanted more. More of her. More time with her. Even if that meant following her up the mountain?
Damn, but he was in a crappy mood. He grabbed for his Snickers bar tucked in one of the cup holders, tore off a bite, and chased it down with a swig of coffee, lukewarm and bold.
Sunny eyed his half-eaten candy bar with obvious disapproval as she finished off a bag of granola, her eyes darting intensely. For the first time he considered how everything must look in comparison to an off-the-grid community on an Aleutian island. Could that also have something to do with her decision to leave so abruptly?
If so, understanding her better could give him some insights to change her mind.
He draped his wrist over the wheel. “Culture shock, huh?”
“A little.” She crumpled the bag of half-eaten, store-bought granola she’d purchased with money from the wire transfer from her family. She wouldn’t even let him pick up the tab for her freaking lunch.