Alaskan Fire (59 page)

Jack grunted and returned his
attention to his grease-stained metal.

Just as Blaze was getting ready
to pull the roasts out and serve dinner, she was interrupted in grabbing a
hot-pad by a knock on the basement door.

Jack rolled his eyes.  “If Jennie
Mae wants more eggs, just tell her to go
collect
them.  She doesn’t have
to come over and
chat
about it, if you know what I mean.”

Blaze sighed and gave him a
pointed look.  “It’s good to have neighbors.”

“Oh yeah?” Jack demanded.  “Why? 
So they can eat your food and you can go haul their incompetent asses out of
the river when their boats flip over?”

The knock came again, tentative,
and, when it was clear that Jack wasn’t going to get up to get the door, Blaze
went downstairs to answer it.

As soon as Blaze opened the door,
she froze.  A dark-haired, Asian-looking man stood on her back porch, probably
around six feet, thickly-built, but packing more fat than the wereverine.  As
soon as she tugged the door open, his eyes widened and he tugged his ballcap
off of his head and held it in his big hands.  “Uh,” he said, by way of
introduction, “Name is Nicolai Sikhote.  I just bought a cabin downriver. 
Moved my family in just before Breakup.  Uh…”  His nose twitched and he lifted
it to the air, then his eyes came to a rest timidly on her face.  “Thought I’d
go meet the neighbors.”

“Oh, well, that’s nice,” Blaze
said, smiling.  “I just cooked a goose.  Come on insi—”

Then she was being thrown out of
the way as a four hundred and fifty pound wereverine came hurtling down the
stairs and shoved the man backwards off the porch, all fur and fang.

“
Jack
!” Blaze cried, “What
are you
doing
—?”

But the man in the yard merely
picked himself up off of the slushy ground and gave Jack a nervous look.  “Uh,
so, yeah.  Just introducing myself.”

Blaze started to get goosebumps
at the way Jack stood there, snarling, saliva dripping from inch-long teeth,
and the man only looked slightly perturbed.  Like Jack had spat on his shoe. 
She swallowed and took several steps back into the Sleeping Lady.

“Heard there were some vacant
land ‘round these parts,” the man said, eying Jack.  “Not meaning to offend
anyone.”

“Well, ya done introduced
yourself, now
git
,” Jack snarled.  “An’ don’t come back without a
fucking invitation.”

The man’s shoulders tightened,
and Blaze thought she saw a flash of yellow-green in the man’s hazel eyes
before it was gone.  He slapped his ballcap back over his head and turned,
shaking his head.

“Wait!” Blaze called.

The man in the back yard
hesitated, looking over his shoulder.

“Come on in for dinner,” Blaze
said, stepping past the wereverine.  “We got plenty.”

“No we don’t,” Jack growled,
stepping past her again, irritation and—
fear?—
strong down the link. 
Fear…for
her
?

“Jack,” Blaze said gently, “this
is my place.  I want to invite the neighbor over for dinner, you say ‘yes Boss’
and go set the table.”

“Oh, for chrissakes!” Jack
snapped, his wariness and unhappiness and anxiety and fear all mingling in a
tight knot in her chest.  “The kitty’s just
here
‘cause he can smell the
food
.”  Cocking his nightmarish head at the man in the yard, he said,
“Ain’t that right, sweetcheeks?”

Blaze saw the man tense.  “I’m
not a thief,” the man growled.

“He’s not saying you are,” Blaze
said quickly, trying to step past the wereverine again.  “Come on in.  Jack,
go
.”

“Not gonna happen, honey.”  Jack solidly
blocked her passage with an arm that may as well have been iron, keeping
himself between her and the stranger.  The wereverine just stood on the porch,
glaring at their visitor.  He wrinkled his nose and sniffed the air, and Blaze
watched him level his glare back on the stranger.  “You got kids an’ a wife. 
You like ‘em
alive
, you’re gonna fucking keep your hands to yourself. 
Get me?”

Horrified, Blaze cried, “Oh for
fuck’s—”

“Shush, honey, the kitty and I
are coming to an understanding,” Jack said, never taking his eyes off the
stranger.  “He touches you, ever, I’ll destroy his whole fucking family. 
Capiche
?

The Asian man narrowed his eyes
and again, Blaze thought she saw a flash of yellow-green.  “I think we’re clear
on that.”

For a long moment, Jack just
stood there, glaring.  Then, with a growl, he muttered, “Fine, you can come in,
but I got silver and I got blades, and you so much as
fart
, buddy, and
your ass is getting buried in the hill.  Blaze, back up, sweetie.”

Still
keeping his body
between them, Jack started backing into the Sleeping Lady. 

“For
fuck’s sake
, Jack!”
Blaze cried, shoving around him.  “Don’t worry,” she said to their guest, “it’s
nothing you did.  He’s always an asshole.  Come on in.”

The stranger tore his eyes from
the wereverine and lifted them back up to Blaze.  He tentatively sniffed the
air again.  “Uh.  Thanks, miss…?”

“Blaze,” she said, extending her
hand.

The stranger came back up onto the
porch and, giving Jack a wary glance as the wereverine stiffened like wrought-iron
beside her, took it gently, and in that moment, she watched goosebumps crawl up
his arm just before he released her quickly.  “Uh…” he said, taking a
noticeable step backwards and peering up at her.  Gingerly, he took off his hat
for the second time.  “You sure, Miss?”

“He’s just a harmless ball of
fluff,” Blaze said.  “Pay him no mind.”

“Fifty-three dead wolves would
beg to differ,” Jack growled, hovering beside her.

Blaze slapped her face to her
palm.  Doing her best to ignore the nervous-henning wereverine, she said, “Come
on in.  You drink coffee?  Tea?”

“Whatever’s hot,” the man said in
that soft-spoken tone that she’d noticed of many Asians.  Still watching the
wereverine—who was scowling at him like he was some sort of unwanted
pustule—nervously, the man stepped inside after her and took his shoes off in
the entry before padding up the stairs behind her, the wereverine in tow.

Jack carefully leaned against the
bar, none-too-subtly putting his body between the newcomer and Blaze once they
had entered the kitchen.  Still glaring at Nicolai with slitty green eyes, he
yanked a fistful of eating utensils from the drawer behind him, not even
bothering to make sure they were the
right
utensils, and shoved them at
him.  They went sliding across the counter in a metallic tinkle, scattering
against Nicolai’s arm.

“Jack, dammit,” Blaze muttered,
but her heart was going out to him.  She
understood
why he was so upset,
and she wanted to make it better…  But she also wanted to establish whatever
social connections she could in this barren place.  She
refused
to live
in a cultural desert.  Very politely, she said to the newcomer, “So, you said
you’ve got a wife?”

“
I
said he’s got a wife,”
Jack growled.  “One who’s gonna get her head ripped off if—”

Blaze slammed the coffee mug onto
the counter, startling them both.  Forcing a smile at Nicolai, she said, “You
should bring her over sometime.  I’d love to meet her.  Not a lot of girls
around here.  She like gardening?”

Nicolai, who still hadn’t fully
sat down, reluctantly settled into a stool at the kitchen island, watching Jack
nervously.  “Loves it.”

“Great,” Blaze said, pouring him
coffee as he settled onto a stool at the kitchen island, “So where you from,
Nicolai?”

“Siberia,” the man said, at the
same time Jack said, “Russia.”

Blaze frowned.  “You two know
each other?”

Jack shrugged and plucked a
heavy-looking engine part from the counter behind him to start fiddling with it. 
“Wild-ass guess.”

“So,” Blaze said, flipping off
the oven and retrieving hot-pads, “just so there’s no confusion, you’re
moon-kissed, right?”

“Yes, Ma’am,” Nicolai said,
blushing.  “‘Bout a half a millennia, now.”

Jack snorted.  “Kitten.”

That made the man bristle, and
for the first time, Blaze saw a slice of ivory fang before it was hidden by his
lips.

“Allll
right
,” Blaze said,
slamming the first goose down on the counter with a resounding
thump
, “Jack,
this is
my
house and I
just
got finished replacing the drywall. 
There will
not
be fighting inside.  There is, and I see so much as a
scratch
in the
paint
, and I swear to
God
I will
spit
you and roast
you
both
alive just as tenderly as these damn birds.  You
read
me?”

The man seated at her island went
pale, and even Jack looked a little chagrined.  Bending his head back to his grease-stained
hands, he muttered, “Sure, Boss.”

“Okay,” Blaze muttered.  “Let’s
eat.”  She ended up serving each of the weres two of the geese, and took a
small part from Jack’s meal to finish out her own.

“Why don’t you take some off of
his
,”
Jack whined, watching the thin portion of goose settle onto her plate.  “
He’s
the freeloader, here.”

Blaze’s eye twitched and she was
about to explain to Jack the meaning of hospitality when the newcomer reached
into his back pocket, retrieved a billfold, and dropped a hundred-dollar bill
on the table between them.  “There,” he said, nudging it across to her.  “For
your generosity, Ma’am.”

“
Her
generosity,” Jack
snorted.  “It’s
my
dinner you’re eating.”

Blaze groaned.  “Jack, for once,
could you just stop being an asshole?  For once?  Please?  Just once?”

“It’s okay, Miss,” Nicolai said,
“I’ve dealt with his kind before.”

And, by the way he said it, Blaze
was pretty sure he didn’t mean ‘have a friendly chat and work things out
diplomatically for the betterment of our two peoples.’

Apparently, Jack heard it, too,
because that low rattle started in his chest again.

“For
chrissakes
!” Blaze
snapped, standing and jabbing her finger at the wereverine.  “
Eat
, or I
swear to
God
you are sleeping in the shop tonight.”  She swiveled on the
newcomer.  “And
you
.  Stop saying things that will piss him off.  He’s
delicate.  Talk about something benign, like the weather. 
Now
.”

The man quickly bent his head to
the meal.  “It’s good food,” he managed.  While he wasn’t wolfing it down with
the enthusiasm of a starving piglet—
unlike
Jack—he was certainly putting
a dent in it rather quickly. 

“Thank you,” Blaze said, relaxing
back into her chair.  “So you said you’ve got family out here?”

Nicolai’s eyes darkened and flickered
to Jack before he nodded and said, “Aside from my wife, two little girls.”

“Weres?” Blaze asked.

The man twisted and gave her a
horrified look.  “No, Ma’am.  They’re six and twelve.”

…which answered her question as
to whether or not a were would breed more weres.  Blaze glanced at Jack, rather
pleased with that revelation.  The wereverine had buried his face in his goose
and was ignoring the both of them pointedly.  “So,” she offered to Nicolai, “I
suppose you heard about the wolves?”

The man’s face reddened.  “Uh,
yes Ma’am.  Heard about it on the news.  How I figured we could come on out
here.  Figured there’d be some territory up for grabs.”

“Who said I didn’t grab it?” Jack
muttered into his meat.

The man winced, giving the
wereverine a nervous look.  “It’s taken, then?”  He seemed perfectly willing to
go home, pack up his wife and kids, and head out of the Bush on the first
flight out, after the rivers cleared enough for a plane to land.

But the wereverine muttered,
“You’re fine, kitten.  Just don’t come callin too often and you an’ me we won’t
have a problem.”

“Oh,” the extreme relief that
washed over the man’s face was almost painful.  “Thank you, sir.”

Jack made an irritated gesture at
Blaze with greasy fingers.  “Thank
her
. 
She’s
the one who made
it so I don’t need any more huntin’ grounds. 

At mention of Blaze, Nicolai
looked back at her and licked his lips nervously.  “Uh, so she is, uh…?”

“
None of your damn business
!”
Jack roared, even as Blaze calmly said, “A phoenix.”

Jack’s mouth fell open and he stared
at her.  “Now I gotta sputch him.”

Indeed, Nicolai was paling
again.  He started fidgeting with his hat, and Blaze saw the white tips of
claws pricking from the end of his fingers.  Sweat was beading on his
forehead.  “Uh, Miss, I’m
really
sorry to have bothered you.”

He thinks he’s gonna have to
fight his way out,
Blaze realized, horrified.

And Jack, she realized, was
thinking the same thing.  Nicolai looked nervously at the wereverine, who was
growing fur, and then glanced at the stairs to the basement.

“Now
wait just a minute
,”
Blaze said, slapping her hand to the tabletop, making both Nicolai and the
wereverine jerk.  “I’m a businesswoman,” she growled.  “I see an opportunity
here for a mutually beneficial arrangement.  You got a family you need to
feed.  I got food. 
Lots
of food.  And as long as I stay here, safe and
sound, there’s gonna be an abundance of it, or so I’m told.”

Nicolai, sweating, tore his eyes
off of Jack to look at her timidly.

“
So
,” Blaze continued, “You
bring us some firewood, money, gas, something to trade, maybe send your little
girls over once a week to help with chores, and I’ll send you home with more
food than you know what to do with.”

Nicolai swallowed, hard, and it
was pretty clear he still thought he was about to be in a fight for his life. 
But he tentatively said, “Food?”

“Just take a walk out back with
me,” Blaze said, gesturing at the backyard.  “It’s everywhere.  We can’t get
rid of it fast enough.”

She saw a little flash of hope in
his eyes.  “My wife would appreciate that, Miss.  She’s been trying to make do
on what the wolves left behind, and it really ain’t much…”  He hesitated.  “We
been feeding the kids first, of course, but mostly just rabbits, some voles…”

That settled it.  Blaze stood up,
grabbed Nicolai by the hand, and tugged him out of his seat.  “Come on,” she
said.

“What…?” the man asked, still
eying the suddenly-bristling wereverine nervously, carefully tugging his hand
out of her grip.  Jack seemed to relax when he wasn’t touching her anymore. 
God
she was going to have to work on his people skills.