Two Cabins, One Lake: An Alaskan Romance (8 page)

I finally shoved him off me, and staggered back, wiping his
spit off my mouth.  I glared at him.  “What the fuck, Brett?”

“You know you want me, babe,” he said.  “Give us another
chance.  You know how good we are together.”

“Fuck you,” I said.  And for the record, we weren’t good
together.  Not at all.  What he wanted was a little fuck-doll cheerleader, and
though I was blonde, I had a few more brain cells to rub together than your
average sex toy.  And I really didn’t want to fill that role for him.  Not
anymore.

I thought what I’d said was a pretty solid ‘no’, but he
swooped in at me again with his mouth open and honing in on mine.  He also
reached for my breast.

I punched him in the gut, and stepped back so he didn’t head-butt
me when he folded over.  Then, because I really couldn’t resist, I planted my
boot on his shoulder, and shoved him on his ass.

“And another one bites the dust,” a familiar voice said.

I spun around, a motion that made my head swim.  When I’d
established that I wasn’t gonna fall over, I said, “You!”

“Me,” Gary agreed.  He stood before me, looking unperturbed
as he eyed my handiwork.  Brett was still on the ground, acting like a giant
pussy.  I hadn’t punched him
that
hard.  I was a girl, for godsakes. 
One who didn’t work out.  A proper cheerleader probably could have hit him
harder.

“Where’d you learn your moves?” he asked.

I put my hands on my hips.  “I have brothers.”

Gary nodded.  “Fair ‘nuff.”

Brett groaned, and we both watched as he rolled to his
feet.  His hair was messed up, he had grass stains on his ass, and he looked
enraged.  “You
bitch
!” he hissed.

He lunged for me, and I was gonna drop-kick his nutsack, but
Gary stopped my ex in his tracks.  He didn’t even hit him; he just stepped in,
seized his hand in a move that looked deceptively casual but was snake-strike fast,
and did…
something
to it.  Brett went up on his toes, and he whooped for
air as his eyes bulged.

“Now,” Gary said.  “I could break your hand, or you could
apologize to the nice lady and walk away.”

“I’m sorry,” Brett squeaked.  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

Gary released him, frowning as the giant pussy douche
hurried away.  “That was too easy,” he said.

I agreed with his assessment, but my eyes narrowed on him. 
“Why are you here?” I asked.

“I was invited,” he said.  “I was told there was free food.”

I crossed my arms and was trying to invent some reason to
yell at him when Ed rounded the corner and saw us.

He jogged over.  “Hey, Helly, is this guy bothering you?” Ed
asked.

I slapped my hand over my eyes, massaged the ache in my
temples, and tried manfully not to scream.  My love life was a goddamn circus.

“You okay?” Ed asked.  His sticky-sweet concern grated on my
nerves.

He’d been hounding me for
years
, and finally I’d had
enough.  I rounded on him, and alcohol-lubed words spilled forth.  “Ed, I’ve
been using you for your mechanical skills.  I don’t want you.  I’m not
interested in you, I’m not attracted to you, and I don’t want to go out with
you.  I don’t want you to ask me how I am or bring me beers or do me favors.  I
just want you to leave me alone.  Please,” I said, trying to soften what I was
just then realizing was a really harsh rejection.

Ed made a sound remarkably like a sob, and then turned and
ran away.

God, I
was
a bitch.

“They’re dropping like flies,” Gary observed.  “For his
mechanical skills, eh?”

I growled.  “I’m fucking out of here.”  I turned to storm
away, thought better of it, and stormed to the bathroom instead.  By the time I
let myself out, Gary was gone, and I was just a wee bit calmer.  Still leaving,
though.

Suzy grabbed me just before I made the stairs down to the
dock.  “Where are you going?” she asked.  As if that weren’t completely
apparent.

“I’m leaving!”

“Helly, you can’t drive your boat like this.  You could lose
your guiding license.  You know that.”

My shoulders slumped.  I did know that.

“I can take her home,” said that familiar voice from behind
me.  “Before she makes anyone else cry.”

We both turned to look at Gary.  I opened my mouth to give
him the reaming he deserved, and Suzy slapped me right in the boob.  “Ow,” I
said, rubbing it.

“That would be wonderful,” Suzy said, beaming up at him.  Obviously
she was among his conquests; looking at him all googly-eyed, trusting her
drunken best friend to his protection, and tit-slapping me when I was about to
verbally fillet him.

Hadn’t I told her he murdered my blueberries?  The man was a
killer
, and she was sending me alone into the dark of night with him. 
Just because my dog liked him?  Oh wait, he was the son of a family friend,
too.

And he was hot—that was probably the real reason, right
there.  I wanted to tell her that hotness did not good people make, as
evidenced by Brett, but she was still grinning up at Gary like an idiot.  She
probably wouldn’t even hear me.  Or she might slap me again.

I dropped my hand away from my boob when I realized he was
watching me rub it.  I grimaced.

We haggled over whose boat we were going to take, and I
finally stumped into his.  He’d had to park over on the shore, too, and I
grinned as I my boots left big clods of silt and mud on his shiny silver
decking.  I dropped into the seat in the front farthest from him.

Suzy waved from the shore.  “I’ll drop your boat off later
tonight,” she called.

I raised a hand, hoping she’d understand it meant,
‘I’m
kinda miffed at you, but I love you even though you give my neighbor googly
eyes.  But don’t do it again.  And thank you for being awesome and dropping off
my boat.  Hussy.’

I think she mighta understood.  Or maybe it was just my
wet-cat expression.  Either way, she laughed.

Then Gary pushed us off, and moved past me to his console in
the back.  I was hoping his outboard wouldn’t start—even though that wish made
no sense, considering we were now free-floating and starting to drift
downstream—but it roared smoothly to life with a turn of his key.  Key-start
ignition, steering wheel, cushy seats.  Fancy.

I grunted, eyeing his steering wheel.  I had a tiller
myself, a handle connected directly to the engine and jet, which offered more
responsive steering for going up rocky, winding creeks.  But he was a newb, so
he probably didn’t know that.  He’d learn.  Or he’d die.  Either would be
acceptable, but I knew which one I preferred.

I was facing the stern to keep the wind and blowing grit out
of my eyes, but I avoided making eye contact, and I didn’t speak to him.  The roar
of the boat motor was such that conversation would have been difficult, and I
really didn’t want to talk to him anyway.

He had a ball cap pulled down low over his eyes, but I still
saw them flick to me a few times.  There was a good ten minutes of roaring
silence as we skimmed along.

After I realized my initial grumpiness was unmaintainable, I
found myself trying really, really hard not to think about what his naked body
would feel like pressed against mine.  I couldn’t seem to pry my gaze from his
hand, where it wrapped around his steering wheel.  I could easily imagine it
gripping my hip as he drove into me.  Or cupping and teasing my breast.  I
shuddered. 
God, that had been good.

When he nosed into our little slough, there was an
unfamiliar boat in the parking spot we’d been squabbling over the past week. 
Gary cut the engine, and we slid in beside it.

I was looking around for some clue as to who the boat
belonged to and why it was there, when three men stepped out of the shadows of
the trail.  The light wasn’t all it could have been, but it was enough to see
they weren’t from around here.  Their clothes were too nice, too light-colored,
and they had hair product and tattoos and the glint of jewelry—women barely
wore jewelry around here, let alone men (and don’t even get me started on hair
product).  One was even wearing a Hawaiian shirt, and
no one
around here
would be caught dead in a Hawaiian shirt.

They were big guys, and as they started down the beach
toward me, they looked menacing and thuggish.

Because I was drunk, I climbed out of the boat onto the
beach anyway.

One elbowed the other, pointing at me.  I didn’t know what
that meant because I didn’t speak thug.

“That’s her,” the elbower said in English.

“It’s me,” I sang.  “And who the hell are you?”

They came closer, fanning out and moving toward me with a
casual slowness that I would have found suspicious if I’d been sober.  But I wasn’t,
and every time I blinked, it seemed like they teleported a foot or two.  Which
I found kinda funny.

“You shot down our drone,” the one in the middle said.

I frowned. 
Ah yes
, I guess I had shot down a drone. 
I cast a glance back at Gary.  I’d thought it was his.  But I guess it had been
theirs.  So the way I saw it, I had two choices:  I could apologize, or I could
get belligerent.

I took a step toward them.  “You were spying on me,” I
accused.

The one in the middle shrugged, looking unrepentant.  He had
an expression on his face that I instantly hated, one that said he knew I was a
buzzed blonde, and he very much wanted to take advantage of that.

He raked his gaze down over me.  “You looked real good in a
bikini,” he said.  They closed in another step, pushing past the edge of my
casual-acquaintance bubble.  “But now we’re missing a drone.  How are you gonna
make that up to us?  Hmm?”

He was leering, I realized.  They were all leering.  This
had somehow turned into a bad situation.

The one to my right reached for me, and Gary caught his
wrist.  I hadn’t realized he’d come up behind me, and I don’t think they’d
really noticed him at all.

But now the one with a captured wrist peered up under the
brim of Gary’s ball cap.  His dark eyes narrowed.  “Hey,” he said, “you’re—”

As he was speaking, he reached for Gary.  Gary took
exception to this, and drove the heel of his hand up into the guy’s face.  The
thug toppled.

The other two leaped forward, knocking me aside as they
rushed past.  I spun as I fell, and wound up doing a butt-plant in the sand. 
The spinning made me dizzy as hell, but I’d landed facing Gary and the thugs.

He was beating them up.  My vision kept oozing sideways, but
I was able to gather that much.  Gary was just a blur of movement with quick,
hard jabs of his hands and elbows.  I heard grunts.  Thuds.  In just moments, Gary
was the last man standing.  At his feet, the men groaned.

He bent over them, starting to pat them down.  He came up
with a gun, and this was the part my alcohol-soaked brain couldn’t quite
comprehend.  Like some magic trick, the dark metal sort of clicked and slid
apart in his hands.  Then he tossed the parts away and repeated the performance
on the next guy’s gun, and the next.

I shook my head, sure I was seeing things.  It didn’t
surprise me that they all had guns, but what Gary had done with them… Guns
didn’t just fall apart, and they certainly didn’t fall apart in the hands of
some millionaire city-slicker.  ‘Cuz that’s what Gary was. 
Right
?

He looked up and saw me sitting in the sand, and his lips
twitched.  “You think you can drive a four-wheeler in your condition?” he
asked.

I scoffed.  I wasn’t
that
drunk.  “Sure,” I said,
crawling to my feet.  I brushed off my damp ass and eyed the thugs.  Gary’d
only had a few moments with them, but they only looked half-conscious at best.

“Why don’t you go ahead on up to the cabin,” Gary suggested. 
“I wanna have a talk with these three.”

I met his eyes.  “I thought the drone was yours.”

This time he outright smiled at me.  “I thought as much.” 
He jerked his chin toward the four-wheeler.  “Go.  We’ll have a talk about you
shooting my property later.”

I grunted, and managed to swing a leg up over the seat. 
When had putting the four-wheeler in gear gotten so complicated?  I got it
rolling in the right direction, and steered it carefully up along the trail.

I’d made it maybe halfway to my place when realization hit
me.  My thumb slipped off the gas, and the four-wheeler puttered to a halt on
the darkening trail.

My neighbor, Gary, had just taken down three armed men.  With
his bare hands.  In seconds.

I was seriously, seriously beginning to doubt he was a
school teacher.

A flash of movement caught my eye, and I looked up to see
Mocha streaking up the trail toward me, a big doggie smile on her face.  “Heya
girl,” I said.  She butted her head against my leg, and I leaned down to pet
her.

That’s how I found out how surprisingly comfortable it was
resting my cheek against the gas cap.  I didn’t really decide to take a nap. 
My eyes just sort of drifted shut, and things went dark for what felt like just
a moment before a concerned voice woke me.

“You okay?  Helly?”

I sat up, looking around bleary-eyed.  Gary was jogging
along the trail toward me, though he slowed when I straightened.

“I thought you were driving home,” he said, his voice warm
with bottled laughter.

The four-wheeler was still running.  And in gear, I noticed
with a thread of embarrassment.  “I got distracted,” I said.

“Scoot forward a bit,” he said, stopping so he was standing
next to my boot.

“I can drive,” I grumbled.

“Uh-huh.  You just fell asleep while driving.  You are
drunk.  Now scoot forward; I’ll drive you home.”

I scooted.  Stupid alcohol, making me all agreeable and
shit.  I made a note to blame it later.

He swung up to straddle the seat behind me.  My nipples
hardened, and my breath came a little bit shorter.  I couldn’t help it.  The
man was hot, and now I knew he was dangerous, which only made him hotter.  I
was sitting between his legs, and then his arms came up to either side of me,
caging me in.