No Gentle Giant by Nicole Snow
More Precious Than (Felicity)
One fine day, maybe, I’ll get over the urge to hide in the backroom every time Alaska comes into The Nest.
That day was not yesterday.
Or the day before.
Or the day before that.
Or any day in the last week when he’s been coming by in the mornings to top up fuel for his crew. He’s as friendly as always, like the entire mug incident—oh, and the whole Paisley-turning-my-place-upside-down thing—didn’t even happen.
He just smiles that slayer grin, thanks me for the joe, and then he’s gone.
But a girl notices things.
There’s a certain way he glances at me, lingering, a heat flaring in his eyes.
Like he’s wondering just what kind of unholy mess I’m caught in.
Exactly like he’s pondering if he should’ve just listened to the fair warnings I gave about not getting too tangled up with me.
Not all the rumors about me are just malicious gossip.
I’m a walking bad luck charm, and most folks in Heart’s Edge know it.
Alaska will figure that out soon enough, the same as everybody else.
He’ll distance himself, those warm, friendly smiles and soul-searching mocha-brown eyes going flat and perfunctory. Careful. Withdrawn.
Just polite enough to keep me at arm’s length.
He’d be totally right to, even if Alaska is exactly the kind of man I’d fall for if I had the freedom to do things like go tripping into love without expecting it to blow up in my face.
He’s too extra.
Too much, really, right down to his sinful form.
It’s like one day the creator of the universe decided he wanted to see how much man he could pack into a tattooed skin stretched over a frame so tall it’s halfway to heaven.
Seriously, the man practically has to duck and angle himself just right to fit through the door like a colossus trying to cram himself into a space made for mere mortals.
Let’s not dwell on the great dad part. My ovaries will die.
Or his fun sense of humor, his kindness, his gentle, unbearably sweet concern for little old me.
Yeahhh.
Alaska Charter is one part poetry and three parts raw wilderness. He is The Great Alone—yes, thank you, I’m a sucker for Alaskan romance dramas worth an ugly cry or ten—finally deciding to find some company in this weird little town.
He rocks the whole wild mountain man vibe like it’s what he was made for, that thick, dark hair and tangle of a thicker beard that doesn’t hide his face, but accents just how handsome his tanned, weathered features are.
How sincere.
Some guys look nice, but it’s usually all surface. Shallow.
You need something from them, and it comes at a cost when they think niceness is currency. I think Sylvia Plath said it best:
Girls are not machines that you put kindness coins into until sex falls out.
Yeah.
Most guys won’t even hold doors for you if they don’t think they’ll get a hot lay out of it.
Alaska, though...
Yikes. Alaska.
I don’t think he gets just how much he’s saved me.
That cash was just enough to keep the shop open and cover daily operating expenses until I can get revenue flow going again. Not to mention making sure I don’t miss my part-timers’ paychecks. They shouldn’t suffer just because I’m basically cursed.
Heart’s Edge seems like an endless riot, but it’s been mostly quiet this past year.
A year of well-deserved peace.
I can’t let my problems with the Lockwood syndicate bring trouble calling to this town again.
And I definitely can’t let my problems spill over onto Alaska.
Especially when I know he’s still trying to help me in his own not-so-subtle way, ordering more coffee than his crew could possibly drink every day.
So many friends try to help me when I feel like I don’t deserve it.
So many people put their reputations on the line to stand next to the black sheep of Heart’s Edge.
Their kindness leaves me so warm I can hardly stand it.
Which is why I can’t stand the idea of letting Paisley Lockwood hurt them. Not that long ago, we got her hooks out of Heart’s Edge, thanks to Warren Ford taking out the head of her local distribution operation.
He never knew it and I wasn’t about to enlighten him. Not when he’s settled so sweetly into family life in between wild bouts of saving the town’s bacon like the so-called Heroes of Heart’s Edge do.
It’s busy in The Nest today. I had to call in a couple of extra part-time staff, extend hours for others, and while they’re happily making a little extra on their pay, I’m just tallying the numbers coming in to make sure I have enough to pay them.
I sigh. Looks like I’ll be living on ramen and instant macaroni for a while.
It’ll be all right.
I’ll make sure of it.
Across the room, Blake and Peace Silverton sit across from Blake’s daughter, Andrea, and that boy she likes—Clark. It’s not hard to tell Clark’s giving Blake crap.
Clark always gives Blake crap, and Blake sits there and scowls and deals with it, looking like a bulldog with his face drawn into ornery lines and clutching one hand against his iced dark roast.
He only pretends to mind, because he can’t let himself actually like the boy his daughter likes.
But every time Peace’s hand touches his arm, his expression softens, and he looks down at her with that hypnotized look that says he’d never dream of looking anywhere else in his life.
That’s what true love looks like.
Kinda wish someone would look at me that way.
Campfire-brown eyes, gazing into me like he can see a thousand things and wants to see ten thousand more—like he’s finding all those secrets inside me and touching them gently, knowing them, learning them, learning me.
My face goes hot, and I nearly drop the tumbler I’m cleaning.
Nah. No. Absolutely not.
I can’t turn to him.
I can’t turn to anyone.
Trouble is, I’m dying to know what’s going on with my father’s flight log and if that could get Paisley Lockwood off my back forever, keeping my mother safe.
But how can I ask these people for help when they’ve suffered so much—when they’ve found their peace after so flipping long?
Blake even found his literally, but it’s the same for everybody.
I’d rather feel Paisley’s terrible knife carving me up than take their hard-fought heaven away from them.
* * *
I need a bath.
Possibly a tranquilizer.
Industrial-strength painkillers? Definitely.
Mostly, I just need rest, after a day that kept me on my feet so long I’m amazed I didn’t wear through the soles of my boots.
Thankfully, both are in reach as I pull up and park outside my house.
It’s a ramshackle little ranch cottage, wooden slat siding and white trim, and it’s a lot to keep up on my own but I do my best. This used to be my parents’ house before my father died and I moved my mother out to Coeur d’Alene.
I still have some good memories in here from before everything went bad.
It feels important to hold on to them.
But right now, all I’m holding is an armful of yappy dog. The moment I open my door, I get smacked by a furry mess of brown-point cream-colored Pekingese fluff.
Shrub is my alarm system. As long as he’s okay when I get home, I know no one’s been here.
With a tired smile, I bury my face in his ruff, breathing in the warm scent of clean, happy dog while he wriggles all over me.
Everything’s okay.
Still, I do a thorough check of the house, making sure none of the windows and locks were tampered with. I don’t even get to take my shoes off before my phone rings in my back pocket.
I don’t hesitate to answer when I see it’s my mother.
Sinking down on the battered plush sofa, I let myself drown in the oversized cushions and swipe the call.
“Mom? You okay?”
“Oh my, sweetheart, have you been running? You sound out of breath.”
No, I’m just trying not to hyperventilate, hoping you’re okay.
The moment I saw her name on the caller ID, my blood pressure skyrocketed. I’d half expected to answer to Paisley with my mother’s stolen phone, or worse—the sound of my mother’s screams.
The fact that she sounds so pleasant feels almost surreal.
It goes a long way to calm me down.
Settling my hand over my racing heart, I try to make my voice sound neutral and even.
“Just playing with Shrub, Mom,” I say. “You know how he likes to launch himself at me first thing.”
“Oh, that dog. He’s adorable, but I do wish you’d get something larger. Something that can protect you.”
My mind instantly flashes to something larger, all right, and not from the canine species.
A certain someone who could rival a polar bear.
Mocha-eyed and black-haired and shaggy like a gorgeously built Norwegian Elkhound.
My heart gives a rebellious thump.
Stop. That.
“It wouldn’t be fair for me to get something larger,” I say. Isn’t that the understatement of the year? Nothing about me would be fair to Alaska. But I force my mind back to the subject at hand, continuing, “With me at The Nest all day, a dog that big would be miserable cooped up in the house alone. And I don’t have time to put up a proper fence to keep him roaming the yard.”
“Well, now, if you’d just find a decent boyfriend—”
Oh, no.
Not helping, Mom.
Here we go again.
“So!” I say brightly. “How are things with you, Mom-zilla? Did you manage to get into the local Red Hat Society?”
“Oh, I did.” My mother’s voice brightens while somehow managing to drip with caustic sarcasm. “Despite Cora’s best efforts to keep me out. Why, that woman and her ridiculous grudge! All because the judge chose my tulips over hers at the county fair last year. If she’d just cultivate them properly, maybe she could take home a blue ribbon, too. But no, she’s got to blame others for her problems, so...”
There she goes.
I sit back and let my mother go on.
I’ve heard about Cora before. Mom’s mortal enemy when it comes to every horticulture competition in north Idaho. Ever since she retired, my mom’s dedicated herself to building a prize-winning flower garden with blooms that can turn heads.
But once she displaced the reigning queen, it was war.
On the plus side, if this is all she has to worry about?
I’m happy.
No, more than happy.
She doesn’t sound the slightest bit frightened or worried, and I need to keep it that way.
After her rant about Cora ends, she catches me off guard with, “Oh, but you never answered me. I wasn’t asking how you were doing this evening, dear. What’s new with you? That town never seems to settle down.”
“It’s actually been pretty tame lately,” I lie. It’s not wholly a lie. Heart’s Edge has been quiet for everyone but me. “I’m mostly just busy with the café. You know how it is. Things are actually going pretty well, especially with all the tourists coming through here now that we’ve been big news nationally.”
“I suppose it’s true—there’s no such thing as bad publicity.” She sounds skeptical. “I know you love that coffee shop, sweetheart, but don’t work yourself to the bone. I realize your father and I didn’t leave you much to work with—”
“Stop.” I cut her off firmly. It’s probably the only thing I’ll ever talk back to my mom about. “You did the best you could to manage. You kept The Nest going. It’s not your fault he was skimming off profits for his...” I pause. His habit. I can’t say it, and swallow the words like a knot in my throat. “...his side business. I don’t have that problem now. I’m doing a decent job keeping things in the black.”
Another lie.
But I can’t tell her how Paisley’s crew visits me like vampires, coming after every spare penny when it suits her. It’s a sad irony that The Nest’s money is somehow still going to Dad’s habit even after he’s long dead.
My mother doesn’t sound convinced when she says, “You know...I could always come help to take the pressure off, even if it’s just doing a little office work.”
“Absolutely not!” It takes everything in me not to sound panicked, but I can’t have her here, not even to keep an eye on her.
Not that she’s much safer there, but Heart’s Edge draws some serious insanity like a magnet. Just because we’ve had a lucky run lately doesn’t mean we’re free from more misadventures.
“I’m fine, Mom. I promise. Enjoy your retirement—and your war with Cora.”
She snorts with good-natured amusement.
I fully expect her to go off on another tirade about the flower wars, but instead she hesitates before saying, “Really, Felicity. You sound like you have something on your mind. Do you want to talk about it?”
No.
Yes.
I don’t know.
I still can’t tell her the truth.
After a moment, I ask slowly, “Well, I’ve been thinking...do you remember anything about Dad’s old plane?”
“I remember he spent far too much money repairing that old thing, insisting it would pay out in the end. After the Galentron cargo job fell through and he had to make do with his little private flights...” She clucks her tongue with a touch of frustration—but underneath there’s a whisper of something like remembered love, and I don’t know what to do with that. “But that Cessna’s long gone, sweetheart. He probably sold it for parts when he...ah...when he needed the extra money, especially considering he’d had his flight license suspended.”
“What about the rumors, though? That it crashed in Glass Lake?”
“Bah, rumors. If that’s true?” Mom sighs. “We’ll never see it again for a hundred years. Do you remember when we’d take you camping up there?”
I do.
Glass Lake is north of Heart’s Edge, a freshwater pool poured into the deepest mountains and conservation forest. The snowcaps barely melt in mid-summer and the streams are so cold they border on glacial runoff. Even in July, you could practically get hypothermia after taking a dip.
I still have happy memories there.
Summer vacations.
Dad before his face turned sunken and hollow.
Fishing.
Scary stories over roaring fires.
Toasting my childhood weight in marshmallows.
Falling out of trees and into his smiling arms.
Back when we still knew how to laugh together, how to not worry constantly about money, before the infinite Montana night reached down to steal him away.
I hate the unexpected roughness in my throat. Rubbing at my eyes, I make myself smile even though she can’t see it.
I want her to hear warmth in my voice, not impending tears.
“You’re right,” I say. “It’s probably not Dad’s plane. I’ve heard it’s just some old crop duster, really. No one actually said it was his.”
I just filled in that blank for myself.
Mainly because I remember one thing—the sunken plane rumors didn’t start until after Dad died.
“Well, regardless of whose plane it is...as cold as that lake is, it would take professionals to raise anything down there. So I doubt we’ll ever know.” She sounds puzzled. “Why did you ask, dear?”
“Oh—nothing, I just heard some people talking in the shop today.” Is it possible to shrug with your voice? I’m trying. “It just made me remember old times. But, hey, you’re sure you’re okay, Mom?”
“Oh, I’m fine, sweetheart. Enjoying my retirement, like you said, and taking delight in thwarting dearest Cora.”
“She’s no match for you.” I laugh despite the heaviness filling me, flicking my fingers over Shrub’s fur.
“Damned right she isn’t.” My mother’s voice booms with fierce laughter before it softens. “Are you getting enough rest, Felicity?”
“I’m trying. But I should probably turn in earlier.”
“You should already be in bed,” she says sternly.
Shrub gives a little yip of agreement. Traitor.
“See? The powder puff agrees with me.”
“Okay, okay. I’m going.” I chuckle. “’Night, Mom. I love you.”
“There’s nothing in this world I love more than my daughter, dearest heart. Good night.”
The tenderness in her voice nearly undoes me.
Time to hang up before I burst out sobbing all over her.
But that warmth, that love, hardens inside me—like a pressure-made diamond into something determined.
Screw bedtime, I need to face up to whatever’s in that flight log. Follow the tracks wherever they lead and figure out what my father was up to before he died. The answers may be exactly what I need to stave off Paisley for good.
And they may be exactly what I need to save Mom, too.
I’m out the door in an instant, leaving Shrub with his paws propped up on the front window, looking out at me through the glass and barking while I rummage through my station wagon.
I feel too exposed outside, like Paisley and her goons could be anywhere waiting to pounce. I’m quick to dig through the junk in my glove compartment until I unearth that little leatherbound book and scurry back inside.
Over a cup of warm cocoa—I have to take a break from coffee sometimes—I settle at my desk with Shrub happily curled up in my lap, one hand buried in his ruff and the other busy tapping in numbers from the log into search.
Numbers that look an awful lot like coordinates, and when I try the ones from the very last entry, the day before my father was found dead in his car...
Oh my God.
Google Maps comes up.
Those coordinates zero in on the mountain ranges a couple hours’ drive north of town.
Right over the blue outline of a lake.
Glass Lake.
Right there, in the deepest part, at the center.
I feel like I’ve just walked through a draft of arctic air. No—like I’ve been touched by a ghost, when this is practically a message from the Great Beyond.
Apparently, my father put his plane down in the middle of the lake on purpose.
He wanted someone to know about it, too, in case anything ever happened to him.
Why else would he write down the coordinates?
I’d almost think he was intending to commit suicide, but his body wasn’t dredged up from the bottom of the lake. He somehow crashed the plane in the lake, got out safely, and then?
...I don’t know.
Went to get high, and misjudged the dose when he’d supposedly been off the junk for so long? The coroner said he had enough heroin in his veins to drop an elephant.
Something’s not right here.
Dad was supposed to be clean, but before that he’d been an addict. He knew what he was doing every time he’d pump his system full of that crap. Even if I’ve never admitted it out loud, I always wondered if he meant to kill himself by a late-night overdose.
But he had a chance sooner with the downed plane.
It doesn’t make sense that he’d survive crashing it, then off himself by overdose.
I’m missing part of the story. I just know it. Some unknown hell happened between crashing that plane and his body being found in his truck.
I need to know what’s going on here.
Which means I need to find that plane and figure out why he sank it in the middle of the coldest lake in the region.
I sink back in my chair, staring at the screen. At that map whose simple outlines want to tell a story I don’t know how to read.
How do I go looking for a sunken plane?
I wouldn’t even know where to start. I don’t have diving gear, a submersible, and definitely nothing that would let me pull a whole plane up from those kinds of depths.
Damn it.
I don’t like asking people for help, but I’m going to need someone.
Someone with more experience than me with this level of craziness.
But who? I mean, there’s Doc, technically family now that he’s married to my cousin. He’s got all kinds of covert and special ops experience from the secret Galentron stuff.
Leo Regis, too. Nobody’s roughed it in the wilderness like he has when he was a wanted man.
Plus Warren Ford as well as Blake and Holt Silverton are all ex-military, and they could probably work out some pretty ingenious stuff.
But I can’t.
They’ve already been through hell.
Doc’s wife Ember is my cousin, and I still remember the terror on her face when we were tied up with flames leaping around us. I can’t stand to see that look on her face again if Paisley threatens her.
I adore Peace Silverton. Haley Ford.
Clarissa Regis is more than a business partner now. She’s become a great friend, and I don’t dare threaten her or put their son in danger when she almost lost her life, her husband, and her sister to hired killers.
Same goes for Libby Silverton. She’s been my best friend since childhood, one of the only locals who never believed any of the nasty rumors about me. I’ve watched that pint-sized firecracker light up a man three times her size for daring to whisper that I’m the town bicycle, always ready for a ride.
If I go to any of these people for help, I’m not just endangering them.
I’m endangering their spouses. Their children. Their lives. Everything they’ve clawed their way through hell to keep. They finally think they’re safe.
I won’t be the one to change that.
To ruin it.
Another face flashes through my mind.
A handsome, rugged face with kind walnut eyes and cheekbones that could cut Paisley’s vicious little blade to pieces.
Alaska.
But then again...Eli.
Alaska looks at me like he has this eerie sixth sense. Like he knows I’m hurting, scared, and all he wants is to stand between me and the storm of my life.
He’s already protecting someone else full time, though.
His son.
I can’t. I can’t risk that sweet boy or his father.
Sucking in a raw breath, I rub at my throat, my eyes burning. I’m alone in this. Standing on my own, because maybe people are wrong about a lot of what they say about me, but there’s one thing everyone has right.
I’m bad luck. Cursed. And anyone who gets close to me is just begging to have that bad karma rubbed all over them.
So I’ll handle this alone.
But maybe...
Well, maybe I can just ask Alaska for advice.
He works construction. He’s ex-military. He was a freaking SEAL. There’s no one better to tell me what to do with this.
He can point me to the right equipment I’d need to theoretically find a small plane at the bottom of a lake and go exploring. That’s all. I won’t get him involved.
Also, I’d better hope his money plus the new cashflow covers renting scuba gear.
Because I can’t let this rest.
And I can’t keep living my life on Paisley Lockwood’s whims.
Even in death, Dad found a way to call to me.
How can I not answer?
How could I turn down a sliver of a chance to end this forever?
