All That You Are

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

EPILOGUE

AUTHOR NOTE

T
HE
B
LUE
N
OTE
is a step above the other bars in Ketchikan, Alaska. Its elevated status comes from the fact that it's located in the marina, and has dock frontage for its sister business, Fish Tail Air—a floatplane sightseeing service.

At one time, the building housed a cannery, until it closed when the bigger processing plants began operations on nearby Tongass Highway. The Blue Note's seagull-gray siding has remained unchanged; its metal corrugated roof springs new leaks every year without fail. But none of this matters to the many locals who come to hear the sultry jazz music and they don't seem to mind a bucket or two on the floor collecting rainwater.

The relatively bright interior is due in part to recessed lights, as well as a row of windows along one side. A narrow hallway and door lead to a deck. In the warmer summer months, small tables are arranged on the small outdoor patio and customers can drop lines over the rail to fish. They watch the floatplanes fly in and out, as well as the numerous boats that motor to and from mooring spaces.

For a small-town bar, it's clean and well staffed. The place smells like hops and salty ocean air, with no chok
ing clouds of cigarette smoke—the customers pay attention to the signs posted that threaten offenders with expulsion.

The Blue Note retains the integrity of its original purpose: a platform for the smooth sounds of Grover Washington, Miles Davis and the master of jazz—Mr. John Coltrane. The place was born from a love for jazz. The original owner, Oscar “the Sax Man” Jackson, sought to make his mark in Alaska, having hailed from Louisiana in the early seventies.

Today the Blue Note is run by a family member. She is an unlikely woman who doesn't tolerate disorderly conduct, fights, drunken behavior, political debates—especially jabs to Sarah Palin, their state's infamous governor—or religious preferences that bash one belief over the other.

So it was no surprise to the regulars one June evening that the owner grew irate over an altercation that needed resolving.

“Who are
you
—” the woman inhaled, grabbing on to an angry breath “—to come into
my
place, break
my
glasses, knock over
my
chairs and dirty
my
floor? You're both too drunk to clean this up, but you can be damned sure you'll be paying for what you broke.”

Her low and silky voice owned the barroom's heavy air, leaving no doubt she meant business. She had a determined look and her posture spoke volumes about the plate of spilled Buffalo wings and pieces of glass. She addressed her remarks to the two bruised men wobbling in their boots, one nursing a growing knot on his cheekbone from a sucker punch, and the other a bloody nose he received after taking a header into the table and tipping it over like a tiddlywink.

What had instigated the fight seemed to be a distant memory. All eyes were focused in on the slight woman with the spitfire personality. A sweet trumpet melody played through the jukebox, the music a background serenade for all the coughing and breaths being caught.

With an exasperated sigh, she tossed her long hair over her shoulder, revealing the profile of her oval face.

At that moment, bystander Mark Moretti felt as if he'd taken a blow to his gut, only nobody had delivered the punch. The second he saw her clearly, his mind lost every thought but one.

Good God, she was gorgeous.

He hadn't noticed her thirty minutes ago when he and Jeff Grisham had entered the Blue Note, a watering hole with ocean-blue walls and coral-tone vinyl-covered bar stools.

Black hair fell down her back, stopping just below where the lacy band of a bra would hook. Or unhook. The forest-green knit shirt she wore clung to her breasts and upper body.

His gaze lowered slowly, drinking her in.

Dark denim jeans hugged her curved butt and a purely physical response assaulted Mark. The reaction felt as if a hand had grabbed his throat, crushing his windpipe, making swallowing difficult.

Her skin color reminded him of unstained oak. Golden-brown and warm toned. He thought her heritage might be Chinese, but he wasn't positive. Her features were more Anglo, except for the sexy slant of her eyes.

Even with a flipped-over table and some distance between them, Mark could make out those killer eyes. The irises were silver-green, rimmed with a darker color
he couldn't discern. Her mouth pouted, the lips a natural pink shade. The lower lip was fuller, but the upper appeared just as sinful. That mouth made a man wonder right then and there what she'd taste like if he kissed her.

With an irritated wave of her hand, she gestured to the exit. “Go beat on each other outside, fish-brains, before I beat the crap out of you myself.”

For a woman whose height probably marked at five foot three on a tape measure, give or take a half inch, she had some guts.

There were very few women in the place. The bar was mostly full of men who wore rubber boots, having clocked off at the canneries or having just come in from fishing boats. Then there were guys like Mark, visiting from the lower forty-eight to feast on Alaska's untamed beauty, and right now the scenery wasn't the only thing worth looking at.

Jeff shuffled in front of Mark, his cheek swelling. “Am I cut, bro?”

“No, but you're turning a ripe shade of purple.”

“Son of a…” Jeff ran a hand through his rumpled hair, then shot his opponent a mighty glare.

Mark reached forward and jerked Jeff by the shirtsleeve to make him face away. “Leave it alone.”

“That guy hit me for no good reason,” Jeff moaned, his legs not quite stable. He'd put away an undeterminable amount of beer and was feeling no pain.

Mark's dry tone cautioned, “It might have been you saying guns should be banned and him saying people like you should be banned.”

“He's just a Wild Bill who doesn't have any common sense about the dangers of guns in a big city.”

“You left Seattle behind. This isn't a big city.”

Disregarding that information, Jeff gathered his vest. “I'm out of here, bro. Come on.” He trudged through the door onto the pier, a gull squawking overhead.

Mark held back, his gaze seeking one more glance at the dark-haired woman who obviously ran the Blue Note.

Her attention was focused on Jeff's sparring mate. Tucking her hair behind her ears, then resting her hands on her hips, she asked one of the bar's heavyweights to escort him outside. Giving a sigh, she looked at the tumbled furniture. If Mark wasn't mistaken, she seemed shaken by the spectacle of grown men pounding into one another.

She began to right the table and Mark jumped in to help. From bent knees, she looked up through her lashes as he took hold on the opposite end.

“I got it,” he said, and in one motion had the table back onto its legs.

She didn't say thanks, something that struck a chord in Mark. It didn't seem rude or impolite as, instead, it made him think she rarely asked for help.

In her throaty voice—the kind that whispered into a man's ear in a way that would make him do anything—she uttered, “I could have done it myself.”

They stood so close he could smell her warm skin. A light sandalwood fragrance or something earthy. Maybe it was her shampoo, its scent smelling of coconut. Whatever it was, he wanted to breathe in deeper, pull her into his arms and keep her close.

She took a step back, eyes locked on his.

In the few seconds that ticked by, he could read her as clearly as an open book. She had a stubborn pride in
her, and her determined features were like an ice sculpture. But underneath the cool facade, he detected the vaguest hint of feminine frailty, as if one more scrap of trouble might just set her off into an emotional meltdown.

Arching her brow, she asked, “What are you looking at?”

“You, sweetart.”

The words hovered between them; their implication meant a lot more than he'd spoken. But she wasn't stupid. He knew damn well that a hundred times a day, men must look at her. And lust.

“Quit it.”

The heavyweight came to stand beside her, pointedly glaring at Mark. “Hey, he was with the guy who took the right hook.”

Defiance lifted her chin a notch, as if now she had a reason to get rid of him, too. “Get out.”

Sliding into body language that pretty much won over any female he set his sights on, Mark folded his strong arms over a chest that years of construction work had developed into hard slabs of muscle. He knew he was built as solid as a steel frame, stood taller than most men and had been blessed with Italian good looks.

While he hadn't shaved today, the stubble shadowing his face could be considered, by some, handsome in a movie-star way. When he smiled just right, a slight impression of dimples made brackets at the corners of his mouth.

He slipped one hand into his jeans pocket, then shrugged. “I'm just standing here.”

He was surprised when she shot back, “I don't like how you're standing. So get out.”

Now stuffing the second hand in his pocket, for reasons quite oblivious to her, he said, “You know, you'd look a lot prettier if you wiped that frown off your face.”

An evenness marked her repeated command. “Get out.”

The beefy guy's hands closed into hamlike fists. A warning that if he didn't leave, he'd be dealt with.

Mark got the message, but he didn't move real fast. Instead, he reached into his back pocket for his wallet, fingered through the bills, then dropped a hundred note on the table. “That should cover the tabs and the damage.” He paused, then added in a lazy drawl, “Unless you want to make other arrangements. With me.”

A fiery light burned in her beautiful eyes, and she reacted in an angry tone to his offer. “You're in Alaska, fish-brain. And you're in my bar. Inside here, it's my law. I say get out. Now go.”

Mark played along and nodded. “Yeah, somebody's got to drive Jeff home—and I have the truck keys. But I'll come back another time to make you smile.”

The muffled sound she made gave a crooked lift to the corner of Mark's mouth.

He always liked a challenge. Maybe it was fate after all that had him stuck in Ketchikan.

Seeing Jeff sitting on the pickup's tailgate, Mark headed for the parking lot. The soft sound of salt water lapping next to pilings and the metal clink of rigging against masts filled his ears.

It was almost eleven and a misting drizzle had taken over for the day's steady rainfall. It seemed like the sun had set only moments ago, the sky still vaguely awash in color. The days here were long, the summer solstice fast approaching.

He never would have guessed he'd be here, with a guy he'd only known for twenty-four hours, driving him home and thinking about a woman who'd caught his attention like no other ever had.

His was a long story, and he was still writing it, making up a whole lot of bull as he went.

But for the first time since his plane connection to Kenai had been canceled yesterday, the straight story looked a whole lot better than fiction.